Sir Joshua Reynolds was an English painter who specialised in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting, which depended on idealisation of the imperfect. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts and was knighted by George III in 1769.
Frances Burney, also known as Fanny Burney and later Madame d'Arblay, was an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright. In 1786–1790 she held the post of "Keeper of the Robes" to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, George III's queen. In 1793, aged 41, she married a French exile, General Alexandre d'Arblay. After a long writing career and wartime travels that stranded her in France for over a decade, she settled in Bath, England, where she died on 6 January 1840. The first of her four novels, Evelina (1778), was the most successful and remains her most highly regarded, followed by Cecilia (1782). Most of her stage plays were not performed in her lifetime. She wrote a memoir of her father (1832) and many letters and journals that have been gradually published since 1889, forty-nine years after her death.
Streatham is a district in south London, England. Centred 5 miles (8 km) south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth.
Charles Burney was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicist and book donor to the British Museum. He was a close friend and supporter of Joseph Haydn.
Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, a Welsh-born diarist, author, socialite and patron of the arts, is an important source on Samuel Johnson and 18th-century English life. She belonged to the prominent Salusbury family, Anglo-Welsh landowners, and married first a wealthy brewer, Henry Thrale, with whom she had 12 children, then a music teacher, Gabriel Mario Piozzi. Her Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson (1786) and her diary Thraliana, published posthumously in 1942, are the main works for which she is remembered. She also wrote a popular history book, a travel book, and a dictionary. She has been seen as a protofeminist.
Arthur Murphy, also known by the pseudonym Charles Ranger, was an Irish writer.
Henry Thrale was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1765 to 1780. He was a close friend of Samuel Johnson. Like his father, he was the proprietor of the large London brewery H. Thrale & Co.
Streatham Park is an area of suburban South West London that comprises the eastern part of Furzedown ward in the London Borough of Wandsworth, formerly in the historic parish of Streatham. It is bounded by Tooting Bec Common to the north, Thrale Road and West Road to the west and the London to Brighton railway to the east.
Mary Morley Eccles, Viscountess Eccles was a book collector and author. She was renowned for establishing one of the largest private collections of 18th century literature with her first husband, Donald Hyde (1909-1966). This includes works from Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. She also created an Oscar Wilde Collection which was bequeathed to the British Library in 2003.
Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith, born Hester Maria Thrale, was a British literary correspondent and intellectual. She was the eldest child of Hester Thrale, diarist, author and confidante of Samuel Johnson, and Henry Thrale, a wealthy brewer and patron of the arts. She became the second wife of George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith.
John Crewe, 2nd Baron Crewe was an English soldier and a peer. He formed part of the first British embassy to China, and rose to the rank of General. Becoming estranged from the majority of his family, he spent much of his life in self-imposed exile on the Continent. He is perhaps best known for a painting of him as a child by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Maria Kinnaird (1810–1891), born on St. Vincent, was orphaned when La Soufrière erupted in 1812 and was later adopted by the politician Richard Sharp, known as "Conversation Sharp". Sharp was once considered possibly to be the most popular man in London of his time. Through her adoptive father, she inherited not only a considerable fortune but a wide network of influential friends and contacts, particularly among Whig circles. She became a prominent socialite and leading hostess in London during the mid-Victorian period and was described as being an accomplished, attractive, and intelligent woman. In 1835, she married Thomas Drummond, who developed the use of Drummond Light in surveying. She would be her husband's mainstay during his final years as Under-Secretary for Ireland (1835–1840).
Edward Francis Burney (1760–1848) was an English artist. His middle name is sometimes given as "Francisco" or "Francesco".
Elizabeth Hartley (1750?–1824) was one of the most celebrated actors on the London stage in the 1700s. She was also notorious for the role she played in society scandals including "The Vauxhall Affray".
William Seward was an English man of letters, known for his collections of anecdotes. he was closely acquainted in London with Samuel Johnson, the Thrales and the Burneys.
Maria Spilsbury (1776–1820) was a British artist known for her religious paintings and portraiture.
Susannah Dobson née Dawson was a translator from the south of England, the daughter of John Dawson of "the parish of St Dunstan, London". She was notably concerned with the 14th-century Italian humanist Petrarch.
Mary Palmer was a British author from Devon who wrote Devonshire Dialogue, once considered the "best piece of literature in the vernacular of Devon." She was the mother of painter Theophila Gwatkin and sister of the artists Sir Joshua Reynolds and Frances Reynolds and of the pamphleteer Elizabeth Johnson.
Portrait of Mai (Omai) (also known as Portrait of Omai, Omai of the Friendly Isles or simply Omai) is an oil-on-canvas portrait of Omai, a Polynesian visitor to England, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, completed about 1776.
According to Queeney is a 2001 Booker-longlisted biographical novel by English writer Beryl Bainbridge. It concerns the last years of Samuel Johnson and his relationship between Hester Thrale and her daughter 'Queeney'. The bulk of the novel is set between 1765 and his death in 1784, with the exception of the correspondence from H. M. Thrale (Queeney) to Laetitia Hawkins from 1807 onwards, at the end of the chapters.
