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.
MH
's wide circle of friends and acquaintances included leading politicians and other socially prominent figures of her day. She seems to have had personal friendships with John Moore
, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his...
Friends, Associates
Mary Harcourt
MH
became a friend and correspondent of Frances Burney
, and also of the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry
, to whom she wrote in early 1819
This letter is dated 1818 in the Memoir of...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Montagu
EM
met Frances Burney
at Hester Thrale
's house, Streatham Park, near London.
Hemlow, Joyce. The History of Fanny Burney. Clarendon.
106-7
Friends, Associates
Harriet Lee
HL
, like her sister, was personally friendly with many other writers of her day: Jane
and Anna Maria Porter
, Ann Radcliffe
(even though the latter probably did not, as often reported, attend the...
Friends, Associates
Germaine de Staël
One of her associates in her English visit was the future husband
of Frances Burney
. Burney thought her a woman of the first abilities, very much in the style of Mrs Thrale but with...
Friends, Associates
Lady Anne Barnard
LAB
's later social life in London is mentioned in the diary of Frances Burney
.
Graham, Henry Grey. Scottish Men of Letters in the Eighteenth Century. Adam and Charles Black.
345
Sir Walter Scott
renewed his early acquaintance with her after fifty years.
Friends, Associates
Cassandra, Lady Hawke
The young and very private Frances Burney
, at an entertainment where the singer Pacchierotti
was to perform, had an encounter with this terrible set
Burney, Frances. Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay. Editors Barrett, Charlotte and Austin Dobson, Macmillan.
The leading figures in the movement were Montagu herself (who spent freely in hospitality, and who was later dubbed the Queen of the Bluestockings or Queen of the Blues) and Carter
(the most intellectually...
Friends, Associates
Sophia Lee
Their school, together with their literary careers, brought SL
and her sisters a wide circle of friends and contacts, including Jane
and Anna Maria Porter
. The novelist Elizabeth Sophia Tomlins describes Sophia as surrounded...
Friends, Associates
Hannah More
Here she began to gather the circle of friends which by the end of her long life had touched every cranny of English society. She had already met Edmund Burke
in Bristol the previous September...
Friends, Associates
Mary Delany
MD
continued to make new friends late in life (though she was said to have declined to meet Hester Thrale
).
Jones, Mary Gwladys. Hannah More. Cambridge University Press.
60
The king
and queen
were remarkably attentive to her in her widowhood. Prominent...
Friends, Associates
Vernon Lee
Cornelia corresponded regularly with Violet for four years (until her death), encouraging the latter's interests in European, especially Italian, literature and music, as well as the development of Violet's own work. Cornelia gave Violet a...
Friends, Associates
Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
She met a number of English literary people including Frances Burney
, who later reported how de Genlis had remarked that English comedies were such that no modest woman ought to attend them. British journals...
Friends, Associates
Frances Reynolds
Frances Burney
comments on FR
less as a victim than as a joker with a mask of naiveté. She thought that Reynolds got upset too easily over trivia and was hamperingly indecisive. She reported her...