Overview
Written during a seventy-year period, from 1768 to 1839, Frances Burney's letters and journals provide a unique insight into her life and times. Distinguished by their remarkable range and variety, they record Burney's experience of English court life and later, in France, the final stages of the Napoleonic Wars. From the self-centered and irreverent writings of a precocious young girl to the more sober reflections of a mature woman, this collection demonstrates Burney's marvelous ability to capture the changing times around her and create brilliantly candid portraits of those she encountered during the course of her eventful life.
This edition includes an informative introduction, as well as a chronology, selected reading list, index, and full contextual annotations. The versions of the texts in this collection are based on the manuscripts or printed sources that Burney herself approved.
Synopsis
Novelist and playwright Frances (Fanny) Burney, 1752-1840, was a literary sensation in her lifetime, admired by the likes of Johnson, Byron and Sheridan. She was also a prolific writer of journals and letters, beginning with the diary she started at fifteen and continuing for seventy years until the end of her eventful life.
From her youth in London society to a period in the court of Queen Charlotte and her years interned in France with her husband during the Napoleonic Wars, she captured the changing times around her, creating brilliantly comic and candid portraits of those she encountered - including the 'mad' King George, Samuel Johnson and a charismatic Napoleon Bonaparte. She also describes, in her most moving piece, undergoing a mastectomy at fifty-nine without anaesthetic. Whether a carefree young girl or a mature woman, Fanny Burney's forthright, intimate and wickedly perceptive voice brings her world powerfully to life.