Frances “Fanny” Burney
Virginia Woolf called her “the mother of English fiction” and
she is widely recognized as an influence on the works of Jane Austen, yet Fanny
Burney’s fame outside academic circles has diminished significantly with time.
Born in Norfolk, England in 1752, Fanny was the daughter of the
musician, Charles Burney, and was one of six children. She would go on to have
three step-siblings and a half-brother as well. The Burney children were quite
accomplished with Fanny’s older sister considered a harpsichord prodigy and her
brother a renowned traveler, yet Fanny was not formally educated. Her father
disapproved of her literary pursuits, and “still could not read the alphabet by
the age of 8 and was called the ‘little dunce’ by a family friend”
(nytimes.com). None of this deterred Fanny, however, and she educated herself
by reading omnivorously and by writing at a young age. Burney’s earlier works
were lost to her dramatic flair when she burned them in what may have been a
reaction her father’s disapproval at the age of fifteen (library.unt.edu). At
the same time, Fanny began writing a diary which would span seventy years and
would eventually be edited for public consumption.
Fanny’s family home was often host to gatherings which included
the likes of Samuel Johnson, Richard Sheridan, and David Garrick. It was at
gatherings such as these that Fanny developed her talent for the sharp, witty social
observations which would be the hallmark of her first novel Evelina. Burney published the manuscript
anonymously in 1778 at the age of 26. The novel “concerns the development of a
young girl, unsure of herself in society and subject to errors of manners and
judgment” (Britannica.com). The novel was well-received, incredibly popular for
its satire, and “celebrated for depicting the pretentious, the vulgar and the
roguish with the same animation as the morally uplifting characters” –an
attribute which, according to Burney, led Dr. Johnson’s to exclaim of one of
her vulgar characters “…there is no Character better drawn any where – in any
book, or by any Author.” (nytimes.com).
In the course of her life, Burney would follow Evelina with three more novels, Cecilia, Camilla, and The Wanderer, but
she would not make her fortune as a writer and spent some years in the court of
King George III and Queen Charlotte during the French Revolution. It was during
this time that she met Alexandre d’Arblay, a French immigrant, whom she would
later marry and with whom she would share one son, born in 1793. Fanny and
d’Arblay visited France and were “forced by the renewal of the Napoleonic Wars
to stay for 10 years” (Britannica.com) from 1802-1812. Eventually, they were
able to return to England and settled in Bath where, Mr. d’Arblay passed away
in 1818. After his death, Fanny and her son moved back to London where she
remained until her death in 1840.
Famous for her novels as well as for her diaries which
included the time spent in the literary circle of Dr. Johnson, English Heritage
erected a plaque at her 11 Bolton Street home in Mayfair in 1885. It “is the
earliest surviving official London plaque to a woman.”
(English-heritage.org.uk).
Sources:
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