Michael Franklin brings Hester Piozzi's Welsh heritage to the fore in this biography and, in detailed and incisive analyses of her works, examines the relationship between Piozzi's identity as a “Welshwoman” and her literary output (63).1 Drawing on a wide range of Piozzi's published writings and manuscript materials, Franklin makes an insightful contribution in an increasingly vibrant field of scholarship on Piozzi's life and work, intervening in discourses concerning national and cultural identities, politics, gender, and literary genre.
In 1741, Hester Lynch Salusbury was born at Bodvel Hall, “three miles west of Pwllheli” (1). Her parents, John Salusbury of Bachegraig and Lleweni, and Hester Maria Lynch Cotton of Combermere, could claim “aristocratic Welsh blood” because “both descended from Catrin of Berain” (ix, 3). Throughout his chronologically structured biography, Franklin maintains that Piozzi was “a Welshwoman to the core and was proud to attribute all those characteristics . . ....
