Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Frances Burney
-
Standard Name: Burney, Frances
Birth Name: Frances Burney
Nickname: Fanny
Nickname: The Old Lady
Married Name: Frances D'Arblay
Indexed Name: Madame D'Arblay
Pseudonym: A Sister of the Order
Used Form: the author of Evelina
Used Form: the author of Evelina and Cecilia
Used Form: the author of Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla
FB
, renowned as a novelist in her youth and middle age, outlived her high reputation; her fourth and last novel (published in 1814) was her least well received. Her diaries and letters, posthumously published, were greeted with renewed acclaim. During the late twentieth century the re-awakening of interest in her fiction and the rediscovery of her plays revealed her as a woman of letters to be reckoned with. Today her reputation in the academic world stands high, and productions of her plays are no longer isolated events.
Henry Fothergill Chorley
, reviewing the novel for the Athenæum, found Grantley Manorhaunted by the intertextual spectre of Jane Austen
's Emma; he also drew parallels with Frances Burney
's Cecilia...
William Enfield
in the Monthly Review thought this book an inferior imitation of Burney
's Cecilia, but added a little faint praise. The Critical, with depressing predictability, censured AMB
's intricate plot and...
Literary responses
Cassandra, Lady Hawke
CLH
's immediate family were warm in their admiration. Frances Burney
, who read Julia de Gramont when it was passed to her by the queen, found it all of a piece—all love, love, love...
Literary responses
Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
Hester Lynch Piozzi
evidently felt later that these stories were very strong meat for children. She commented in a letter, I think a great Change has been made in Taste of popular Literature—or rather popular...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Bonhote
The Critical Review placed this novel in the middle of the first rank of fiction, calling it very interesting and pleasing
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
1: 468
although too much like Burney
's Cecilia. Andrew Becket
in the Monthly agreed.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
1: 468
Literary responses
Charlotte Lennox
Samuel Johnson
pronounced in conversation that CL
was worthy to rank with the exceptional women Carter
, More
, and Burney
: more yet, she was superiour to them all.
Boswell, James. Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Editors Hill, George Birkbeck and Laurence Fitzroy Powell, Clarendon.
4: 275
Literary responses
Charlotte Lennox
The novel was noticed in the Critical Review, which approved it, while diagnosing too much reliance on ideas from Frances Burney
.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
2nd ser. 2 (1791): 233
Literary responses
Charlotte Lennox
CL
kept copies of a number of verse tributes to her talents. She was one among the painter Richard Samuel
's The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain in 1778 (exhibited 1779).
Isles, Duncan. “The Lennox Collection (Concluded)”. Harvard Library Bulletin, Vol.
19
, No. 4, pp. 416-35.
429-31
Catto, Susan J. Modest Ambition: The Influence of Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, and the Ideal of Female Diffidence on Sarah Fielding, Charlotte Lennox, and Frances Brooke. University of Oxford.
199
It...
Literary responses
Jane Austen
Some Austen news items are regrettable. In an interview with the Royal Geographical Society
in June 2011, V.S. Naipaul
, in asserting his own superiority to women writers (and claiming he could tell male from...
Literary responses
Catherine Gore
The year after these two novels appeared, a writer in The New Spirit of the Age measured CG
unflatteringly against the humour of Frances Burney
or the lifelike precision of Jane Austen
, but credited...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Hervey
The Critical Reviewread this pleasing and interesting story as an imitation of Burney
's Cecilia.If there is a fault, it suggested, it was the structural fault of raising and solving one difficulty...
HMW
achieved early success as a poet. George Hardinge
was trying in autumn 1786 to secure her a Court position similar to that of Frances Burney
. He did not succeed in this attempt.
Kennedy, Deborah. Helen Maria Williams and the Age of Revolution. Bucknell University Press.
33-4
Occupation
Catherine Hutton
As well as collecting illustrations of costume, CH
was an early collector of autographs. (She began both these collections at a young age, but presumably had to start again from scratch after her losses in...
