According to Queeney - Beryl Bainbridge

This is the story based on the relationship between the lexicographer and man of literature Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale - as seen through the eyes of her daughter - the eponymous Queeney. This is a period I know little about and frankly I'm not sure how much wiser I am now. I found the style most confusing and irritating, and the cast of characters tremendously difficult to pin down. The book ends up as a series of incidents and tales about Dr Johnson's life in his later years. I did learn that the good doctor was eccentric to the point of madness, and it would appear (from this book at least) that most of the circle he moved in were equally strange, and frankly unprepossessing. Queeney herself doesn't have her own character shaded in - she seems shadowy and this is a fault with the book. The overall effect is that I found the plot (such as it was) slippery to deal with, and I remained unenlightened about someone supposedly ones of the greatest literary figures of English history. Rating 5/10