Susannah Dawson married in 1759 a physician and medical writer, Dr Matthew Dobson of Liverpool, where she wrote her Life of Petrarch.
[5] Burney wrote of her, "Though coarse, low-bred, forward, self-sufficient, and flaunting, she seems to have a strong masculine understanding."
[7] According to a modern account, in "rendering down the Abbé de Sade's massive French original, she probes the actions and feelings of another age."
[3] Dobson's second work was to translate and abridge Sainte-Palaye's The Literary History of the Troubadours, which appeared in 1779.
[8] Also ascribed to Susannah Dobson are the anonymous didactic Dialogue on Friendship and Society (1777) and Historical Anecdotes of Heraldry and Chivalry, an original scholarly work published in Worcester (1795).