SOURCE: An introduction to Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey Through France, Italy, and Germany, by Hester Lynch Piozzi, edited by Herbert Barrows, University of Michigan Press, 1967, pp. vii-xxx.

In the following essay, Barrows remarks on the relevancy of Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany to modern readers, noting Piozzi's style and the wealth of information she provided.

Mrs. Miller has been in Italy too, & has written her Travels; and brought home a fine Vase which once belonged I think She says either to Cicero or Virgil I forget which. . . .

—Thraliana

Mrs. Piozzi was an inveterate journal-keeper, and when she set out, newly married to her second husband, Gabriel Piozzi, on the tour of the Continent which was to last a little over two and a half years, she equipped herself with two calf-bound quarto...