Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sarah Harriet Burney
-
Standard Name: Burney, Sarah Harriet
Birth Name: Sarah Harriotte Burney
Nickname: Sally
Used Form: the Author of Clarentine
SHB
was an early nineteenth-century novelist and letter-writer (though she began to publish before the end of the eighteenth century). Her achievements in both these genres have been obscured by those of her sister Frances. She wrote from financial necessity—I must scribble, or I cannot live
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press.
197
—but her later works especially rank high for quality and interest.
Several novels were attributed to AMB
which are probably not hers. Titles that have been ascribed to her include Henry Bennett et Julie Johnson, 1794 (a French translation, bearing her name, of John Raithby
Textual Features
Anna Maria Porter
This is set during the Thirty Years War. As Sarah Harriet Burney
remarked, the period at which she makes her people act and talk, is during the Protestant War in Germany; she carries you...
Reception
Germaine de Staël
Sarah Harriet Burney
, like her famous sister, was troubled at GS
's unconventionality. She wrote that she yawned over De l'Allemagneand yet, here and there, was electrified by a flash of sublimity. Do...
Reception
Elizabeth Hervey
The publisher, Henry Colburn
, sent a pretty bound copy to Sarah Harriet Burney
. She (unfortunately for the literary historian, since her opinion would be worth having) apparently thanked him for it before she...
Literary responses
Mary Brunton
Brunton's English publisher, Longman
, registered in the year of publication that the book was in great demand and very much admired on the whole, though some complain of the later part of the work...
Literary responses
Hannah More
Sarah Harriet Burney
had high praise for it. The chapter on the smaller-scale faults and virtues, she said, merits to be written in letters of gold.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press.
Sarah Harriet Burney
's first impression of this work was favourable: it promises facility of style, & I think I shall like it.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press.
201
Literary responses
Hester Lynch Piozzi
This work was much noticed, making HLP
one of the twenty-four most-reviewed women writers of 1789-90.
Hawkins, Ann R., and Stephanie Eckroth, editors. Romantic Women Writers Reviewed. Vol. 3 vols., Ashgate Publishing Company.
Again she fell foul of critics: this time for her colloquial (sometimes ungrammatical) style and deliberately informal manner. A...
Literary responses
Frances Burney
Burney's family were delighted. Her young half-sister Sarah Harriet
(who was about to publish her own first novel) sent her a perfect rhapsody of praise.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press.
17-18
A long review in the Analytical Review, probably...
Literary responses
Anna Maria Porter
Burney
offered a detailed informal critique. She found the novel full of the most touching passages, but stated that, as a whole, it drags.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press.
230
She did, however, praise AMP
's meticulous attention to detail:...
Literary responses
Mary Charlton
Sarah Harriet Burney
was clearly more impressed by what she regarded as a popular, even a trashy novel, than she was willing to admit. She called it (in implicit contrast with Walter Scott
) a...
Literary responses
Maria Edgeworth
But Sarah Harriet Burney
wrote: Nobody more thoroughly venerates the admirable author than I do—And in this last work, she has really excelled herself. Every young man ought to study it . . ....
Literary responses
Susan Ferrier
This novel too was a success, if not quite so resoundingly as Marriage (to whose reputation more than one reviewer referred).
Cullinan, Mary. Susan Ferrier. Twayne.
68-9
The author's sister Helen (Mrs Kinloch
), an early reader, approached it...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Griffith
The original letters were immensely popular with readers (among others Sarah Harriet Burney
was a devotee); their authors became famous under their pseudonyms. Not everyone agreed in admiring them, however. Lady Bradshaigh
remarked to Samuel Richardson
Literary responses
Jane Austen
But of readers whose responses survive, most were delighted. These included Sarah Harriet Burney
—who, however, thought (apparently along with plenty of others) that Catherine Ann Dorset
, sister of Charlotte Smith
, might be...
Timeline
1 February 1814: The first number appeared of the New Monthly...
Writing climate item
1 February 1814
The first number appeared of the New Monthly Magazine: published initially by Henry Colburn
, it was said to be the earliest monthly to incorporate a miscellany of articles.
Texts
Burney, Sarah Harriet. Clarentine. G. C. and J. Robinson, 1796.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. “Editor’s Introduction”. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney, edited by Lorna J. Clark, Georgia University Press, 1997.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. Geraldine Fauconberg. G. Wilkie and J. Robinson, 1808.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. Tales of Fancy. Henry Colburn, 1816.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney. Editor Clark, Lorna J., University of Georgia Press, 1997.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. The Romance of Private Life. Henry Colburn, 1839.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. Traits of Nature. Henry Colburn, 1812.
