In his Dictionary, Johnson defined the term as ‘something yet unpublished; secret history’. During the 18th century, interest in secret histories increased steadily, and there is no doubt that there was some connection between this and the growing popularity of anecdotage, table-talk, and biography at that time. During the second half of the 18th c., there was almost a ‘craze’ for ‘secret’ histories. Over a hundred anecdote books have been published in England in the last thirty years.
Examples:
Isaac Disraeli, father of Benjamin, became one of the best-known and most assiduous gleaners of anecdotes. In 1791, he published three volumes titled Curiousities of Literature: Anecdotes, Characters, Sketches, Observations, Literary, Historical, and Critical. These he followed with other collections: Calamities of Authors (1812–13) in two volumes, and Quarrels of Authors (1814) in three volumes. In 1812 John Nichols published the first of nine volumes in a series titled Literary Anecdotes of the 18th c. Such works remained popular during the Victorian period. In 1975, there was The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes.
Also read: What is Parody: Definition, characteristics and examples