The Letters Of Sarah Harriet Burney

This scholarly edition presents for the first time all of the known surviving letters of British novelist Sarah Harriet Burney (1772-1884). The overwhelming majority of these letters--more than ninety percent--have never before been published. Burney's accomplishments, says Lorna J. Clark, have been unjustly overlooked. She published five works of fiction between 1796 and 1839, all of which met with reasonable success, including Traits of Nature (1812), which sold out within three months. These letters position Burney among her fellow women writers and shed light on her relations with her publisher and her ambivalence toward her own work and her readership. Her lively observation of the literary scene evinces the range and scope of her reading, as well as her awareness of literary trends and developments. Burney was, for example, remarkably prescient in recognizing, and praising from the first, the talent of Jane Austen, and met several of the authors of her day. A challenging new perspective on family matters also emerges in the letters. The youngest child of the second marriage of Charles Burney, and the only daughter to remain unmarried, Sarah Harriet had the unenviable task of caring for her father in his later years. Her letters reveal a darker side of Dr. Burney, and also help to round out our image of a more favored daughter, Sarah Harriet's half-sister (and fellow novelist), Frances Burney. As literature, Clark observes, Burney's letters are, arguably, her best work. Thoroughly versed in the epistolary arts, she sought always to amuse and entertain her correspondents. Burney ultimately emerges as a quiet but heroic single woman, relegated to the margins of society where she struggled for independence and self-respect. Displaying literary qualities and a lively sense of humor, the letters provide a fascinating insight into the literary, political, and social life of the day.

On the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the writer Frances Burney (1752–1840), a window to her memory was placed in the arched recess of stained glass that graces Poets’ Corner. Novelist, playwright and diarist, Frances Burney is one of the few women accorded such an honour. She joins the likes of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot who might in some ways be seen as her literary heirs. Burney’s journey to recognition on the stage of the world has been a long one, crowned finally with triumph. The service marked the mid-point of a two-day conference in which various aspects of Burney’s life and achievement were canvassed. Her journals and letters, her novels and plays (both comedies and tragedies), her life, family and context were all given serious scholarly treatment. This volume includes the papers presented at the conference, which cover the many facets of a remarkable career and represent the broad spectrum of scholarly approaches to the entire opus of Frances Burney. It shows how far Burney has come from being dismissed as a minor precursor to Jane Austen to being recognized in her own right as a powerful, complex and influential writer, whose works had considerable impact on her own and subsequent generations.

Examining Romanticism's pan-European circulation of people, ideas, and texts, this history re-analyses the period and Britain's place in it.

This collection discusses British and Irish life writings by women in the period 1700-1850. It argues for the importance of women's life writing as part of the culture and practice of eighteenth-century and Romantic auto/biography, exploring the complex relationships between constructions of femininity, life writing forms and models of authorship.

Frances Burney (1752–1840) was the most successful female novelist of the eighteenth century. Her first novel Evelina was a publishing sensation; her follow-up novels Cecilia and Camilla were regarded as among the best fiction of the time and were much admired by Jane Austen. Burney's life was equally remarkable: a protegee of Samuel Johnson, lady-in-waiting at the court of George III, later wife of an emigre aristocrat and stranded in France during the Napoleonic Wars, she lived on into the reign of Queen Victoria. Her journals and letters are now widely read as a rich source of information about the Court, social conditions and cultural changes over her long lifetime. This Companion is the first volume to cover all her works, including her novels, plays, journals and letters, in a comprehensive and accessible way. It also includes discussion of her critical reputation, and a guide to further reading.

Presents material not included in either The early journals and letters of Fanny Burney (covering 1768-1781) or The court journals and letters of Frances Burney (covering 1786-1791), written at the height of her fame as a novelist.

This edited volume is the first to reflect on the theory and practice of editing women’s writing of the 18th century. The list of contributors includes experts on the fiction, drama, poetry, life-writing, diaries and correspondence of familiar and lesser known women, including Jane Austen, Delarivier Manley, Eliza Haywood and Mary Robinson. Contributions examine the demands of editing female authors more familiar to a wider readership such as Elizabeth Montagu, Mary Robinson and Helen Maria Williams, as well as the challenges and opportunities presented by the recovery of authors such as Sarah Green, Charlotte Bury and Alicia LeFanu. The interpretative possibilities of editing works published anonymously and pseudonymously are considered across a range of genres. Collectively these discussions examine the interrelation of editing and textual criticism and show how new editions might transform understandings not only of the woman writer and women’s literary history, but also of our own editorial practice.