Fanny Burney : Her Life Book

Kate Chisholm's Fanny Burney: Her Life has been warmly welcomed for its affectionate and scholarly insight into the life of a professional woman writer at the turn of the 18th century. Born in 1752, Burney died in 1840 having achieved fame--if not fortune--as the author of Evelina (1778) and Cecilia (1780-82). Chisholm's fascinating account of Burney's early life--the death of her mother, her beloved father's remarriage, her stepmother's disapproval of the "vice" of scribbling--brings to life the historical and cultural, context in which Burney wrote: the origin of her literary career in the secret journal To Nobody; the dilemmas facing a woman author in the age of Dr Johnson and the world of "literary" society; the constant tension between love and writing. A keen observer of her world and herself in it--her wry account of her four years at the court of "Mad King George" is one example, her excruciating description of her own mastectomy another--the publication of The Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay ensured Burney's fame in the 19th century. It is the skill and verve, of Chisholm's biography to make a reader want to turn back to the fiction--and the popular heroines who made Burney a literary name in her own time. --Vicky LebeauRead More