Overview

Frances Burney (1752-1840), also known as Fanny Burney and later Madame d'Arblay, was an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright. Her first novel, Evelina, was published anonymously in 1778 but once her identity as the author was discovered it brought her immediate fame as the work was widely admired for its unique narrative and comic strengths. Of her four novels it was her most successful and remains the best regarded. Her second novel was Cecilia, set in 1779 and published in 1782 with the subtitle Memoirs of an Heiress, which was also highly successful with over 50 editions. Her later novels were Camilla (1796), and The Wanderer (1814) which, like their predecessors, explore the lives of English aristocrats, satirising their social pretensions and personal foibles. Burney's wit and talent for caricature were widely acknowledged by the literary figures of her day including Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke and David Garrick. In addition to her writing career, Burney served as 'Keeper of the Robes' to Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, with whom she developed a warm relationship. In 1793 she married French emigre artillery officer, General Alexandre d'Arblay, with whom she had a son the following year. From 1797-1801 she wrote three plays, all comedies, that remained unpublished in her lifetime, and many volumes of her letters and journals, including those covering her time at court, have been published posthumously. After her husband's death Burney paid tribute to her father, Charles Burney (1726-1814), a music historian, composer and musician, by gathering his papers and publishing in 1832, in three volumes, her Memoirs of Doctor Burney. Written in a panegyric style, praising her father's accomplishments and character, she drew upon many of her own personal writings from many years earlier. In her bid to protect her father and the family's reputation she destroyed evidence of facts that were painful or unflatttering and was criticised by contemporaries, and later by historians, for doing so. Volume 3 of 3.

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