Fanny Burney

Alex McLaughlin

An elegantly written biography . . . Harman recognizes Burney as a person of her times and not the feminist heroine that academic industry has often made of her.

Elspeth Barker

We are priviledged to have this new and meticulous account of an extraordinary life. Harman's account is full of special delights. She excels in the vivid presentation of scenese, the selection of detail. A marvellous and beautifully written book.

Kathryn Hughes

Harman's excellent biography of Fanny Burney is unlikely to be bettered for many years to come.

Pamela Norris

Sensitive and immaculately researched.

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Sensitive and immaculately researched.

Susan Ostrov Weisser

Fanny Burney was a heroine for our times, her life and work are worth remembering, and Claire Harman's book introduces both to a contemporary audience with lively wit and grace.
— nytimes.com

Publishers Weekly

Authoritative and scholarly, this is an entertaining biography of one of the earliest celebrated English women of letters. Harman, a British author (Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography), skillfully traces Fanny Burney's (1753-1840) life from her childhood as the daughter of composer and music historian Dr. Charles Burney through her career as a well-known novelist. Burney revered her father, and it was not until she was sure of his approval that she was able to enjoy the success of her first, sensational novel, the satirical Evelina (1777), published anonymously. When her authorship was revealed, she began to mingle in literary society and became acquainted with Samuel Johnson and other notables. In deference to her father's social ambitions, Burney accepted an appointment to the court of Queen Charlotte and "mad" King George III. Drawing on her subject's voluminous letters and journals, the author describes Burney's unhappiness during this period until, after five years, she received her father's permission to resign. An inspiration to Jane Austen and called "the mother of English fiction" by Virginia Woolf, Burney was nonetheless ambivalent about her status as a writer and would deprecate other novelists as she grew older. She married a French Royalist ?migr? in her early 40s and had one son, whom she outlived. Of particular note and partially excerpted in this account is Burney's harrowing recollection of a mastectomy she endured in 1811 without an anesthetic. B&w illus. (Aug. 30) Forecast: This engaging biography, if widely reviewed, should reawaken interest in Burney and sell well among fans of English letters and women's history. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

This is the second scholarly biography of Frances (Fanny) Burney to appear within the last two years (following Janice Farrar Thaddeus's Frances Burney: A Literary Life, LJ 7/00). A forerunner of Jane Austen, novelist Burney (1752-1840) was one of the first women in England to earn her living as a writer. Resourceful and resilient, she witnessed many historical events and associated with an array of Georgian literary and political notables. In addition to her fiction, she left thousands of pages of journals and letters, which have served as a rich but untrustworthy source for her biographers. When it was published in Great Britain last year, this study by the Oxford-based biographer Harman was considered one of the most readable, perceptive, and balanced portraits to date, and indeed it is. Compared with Thaddeus's erudite "literary life," with its dense, scholarly focus and emphasis on the textual analysis of Burney's work, Harman's work is more readable and reveals the personal side of the less-than-truthful author. Harman skillfully uncovers inconsistencies in Burney's memoir while accurately and vividly depicting her life as a middle-class woman in the turbulent 18th century. This accomplished and accessible biography is highly recommended for both academic and public libraries. Carol A. McAllister, Coll. of William & Mary Lib., Williamsburg, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An important, comprehensive view of the pioneering novelist and playwright (1752-1840). Burney, who has been enjoying a recent revival (Janice Farrar Thaddeus's "Frances Burney", 2000), has a thorough and compassionate critic in Harman (ed., "The Diaries of Sylvia Towsend Warner", 1996). Harman acknowledges that the Burney family archive is so extensive that "scholars grow gray" attempting to digest it, but she has managed well the complications of sifting such literary sands. Harman sees Burney as an inventor, not just of novels and plays, but of her own life (her autobiographical writings are notoriously inaccurate). "Is she an inveterate liar," asks Harman, "or an inveterate writer?" Her answer is the latter. Burney's celebrated father, Dr. Charles Burney, musician, writer, and teacher, reared a large family, encouraging his children to enjoy the intellectual life. Fanny, the second daughter, was surprisingly slow to read, but once she began, she never really stopped. She was soon writing regularly and composed and published her first novel ("Evelina", 1778) without telling her father. She then had the delicious experience of watching friends and family read and enjoy her novel, without knowing its authorship. Her literary celebrity (which was considerable) was several times interrupted, once by her appointment to the court of George III (Burney attended Queen Charlotte for five years), another time by the rise of Napoleon (when Napoleon declared war on England, she was trapped in France for nine years with her French husband). Although the author's focus is on Fanny, she periodically explores the careers of her siblings (and her sad son, who preceded her in death), a decision thatboth enriches Fanny's story and illustrates how remarkable it was. Included are the agonizing details of Burney's 1811 mastectomy, performed without anesthetic. Harman notes that Fanny was no feminist and would have been "shocked and distressed" to have been classified as such. Substantial research informs this sympathetic and vibrant biography. (36 b&w photos)