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Cecilia

Frances Burney,

Margaret Anne Doody (Editor),

Peter Sabor (Editor)

3.76 · Rating details · 3,583 ratings · 169 reviews

Cecilia is an heiress, but she can only keep her fortune if her husband will consent to take her surname. Fanny Burney's unusual love story and deft social satire was much admired on its first publication in 1782 for its subtle interweaving of comedy, humanity, and social analysis. Controversial in its time, this eighteenth-century novel seems entirely fresh in relation to ...more

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Paperback, Oxford World's Classics, 1056 pages

Published July 22nd 1999 by Oxford University Press (first published 1782)

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Mar 12, 2020 Fionnuala added it · review of another edition

Shelves: one-book-leads-to-another, covid-times, 1700s

One of my first reactions on finishing this long and melodramatic 18th century saga was relief that such unlikely plots and histrionic characters are no longer in vogue in literature—though we still have plenty of melodrama in the form of soap opera. Yes, the more I think about it, the more parallels between this book and a soap opera occur to me:
-there are a set number of characters, some of whom turn up again and again serving new and unlikely plot purposes every time
-on each occasion that th ...more

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Jan 17, 2020 Warwick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, england, london, georgian-regency

I little thought, when I first picked this book up with a sense more of duty than anticipation, how extraordinarily fun it would prove to be (not least because I managed to convince my wife that ‘Fanny Burney’ was eighteenth-century slang for thrush). For the last week I have been rushing through work in order to enjoy my train-ride home in the company of Cecilia, and going to bed early to get some extra reading time in. Which hasn't happened to me for a while.

My main worry, after the first coup I little thought, when I first picked this book up with a sense more of duty than anticipation, how extraordinarily fun it would prove to be (not least because I managed to convince my wife that ‘Fanny Burney’ was eighteenth-century slang for thrush). For the last week I have been rushing through work in order to enjoy my train-ride home in the company of Cecilia, and going to bed early to get some extra reading time in. Which hasn't happened to me for a while.

My main worry, after the first couple of hundred pages, was that there was still so much of the book left for things to go downhill. And it is true – let's say this up-front – that the ending is the most disappointing part of the novel; the last volume collapses into melodrama and feverish exclamations, and in general resolves the problems of the plot in ways that are bound to be unsatisfactory for a modern reader. But I don't want to let that overshadow the rest of the book too much, because the first seven hundred pages were pure joy for me, which for a book this size is more than anyone had a right to expect.

Cecilia and her love interest are endearing enough, but the real fun comes from the amazing cast of supporting characters, whom Burney sketches as a series of hilarious caricatures. The flighty socialites, proto-gossip-girls, sleazy men and haughty toffs are so recognisable that I found myself dreaming of how this could be remade as a high school movie. Miss Larolles in particular – ‘the inimitable Miss Larolles’, as one of Austen's heroines calls her – is an absolute delight to spend time with, and I could listen to her breathless chatter all day – But only conceive what happened to me! Was that not horrid provoking?, etc.

Much of the enjoyment here comes from the snapshot the book offers of everyday contemporary society. Unlike so many other novelists of the time, who were writing Gothic tales set in exotic France or Italy, Burney is deliberately capturing, in an almost documentary way, the daily life of 1779–80 London, including fashionable events and soirées of the period. There are so many fantastic details in here concerning how people got around, what kind of etiquette was involved in mixed-sex socialising, who handed whom into carriages, how you called on acquaintances, how you made travel arrangements, and so forth. I suppose some people may find this boring, but I was absolutely captivated. There are so many scenes that we can't properly ‘read’: often, someone will say something innocuous which occasions total outrage, while at other times they'll come out with something apparently awful which everyone seems to find perfectly agreeable.

And, surprisingly, through all of this, Burney's focus is very much on what we might now call social justice; rather than the ballrooms and beau monde that I was expecting, there is a consistent effort here to range through different classes of society, and indeed to challenge socio-economic structures in and of themselves. One character, disgusted by the prevailing demands of politeness, points out that ‘The bow is to the coat, the attention is to the rank, and the fear of offending ought to extend to all mankind,’ and this is something that the book tries to explore on a large scale.

Cecilia herself is placed in a position that, for modern readers, can only be seen in pointedly feminist terms: she is an heiress, but can only inherit if her husband agrees to take her surname. (Weirdly, this is something that seems to have been less uncommon then than now.) But the man she loves is from a very old and proud – though not very wealthy – family. The plot therefore takes these ideas of female autonomy, financial muscle, and patriarchal tradition, and clashes them together with extreme violence to see what breaks.

It is customary to see Frances Burney as a sort of John-the-Baptist figure. ‘The whole of this unfortunate business,’ someone exclaims during the dénouement of this one, ‘has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE,’ and one hears the sound of someone frantically taking notes in Bath. I had expected to find that Austen brought wit and skill to a rather hidebound genre, but that's not at all what I feel now. This is every bit as funny as anything in Austen. I see Austen's importance now a bit differently: what she did was, I think, to get rid of the melodramatic silliness that Burney still leant on for her conclusion, and also to find a way to achieve these effects in three hundred rather than nine hundred pages, which is certainly no small achievement.

Even so, there are things in here that you just don't get in Austen. Proper action, for one thing: Cecilia includes such set-pieces as a public suicide in St James's Gardens, which I really was not expecting. And, for another thing, moral ambiguity – there are many characters here who are sympathetic but seriously flawed, and it is very hard to know, on reflection, what we are supposed to think about the way things conclude. The ‘happy ending’, if such it is, is a very ironic one. At first, I thought this was just a problem for modern readers, but it's clear from contemporary reactions that people at the time were disturbed by it as well. The world of Cecilia is, in the end, a disturbing and a dark one, but I absolutely loved spending time there. ...more

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May 08, 2013 Dangermousie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: romance, classics, 18th-century-women-authors

I happen to love this book more than the combined works of Jane Austen (blasphemy, I know). While lacking Austen's sparkling style, I find this book has emotional connection and focus on social issues than I find lacking in Austen's works. It's probably my favorite 18th century novel, in fact.

The story revolves around Cecilia, a young woman who has inherited an enormous fortune but who can keep it only if, upon marriage, her husband agrees to take her name. Unfortunately, Cecilia has fallen for ...more

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Oct 01, 2015 Justin Evans rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

We need to get a couple of things out of the way before I get to the proper review.

i) This is too long.
ii) This shouldn't be read the way you'd read a Hemingway novel--sitting down and intensely fretting through the intense pages of intensity. This should be read the way you watch a TV series: a few chapters here, a few there, letting the various plots lines wrap themselves up, taking a pause while the next one gets going, all the while keeping in mind that there is an overarching point to the We need to get a couple of things out of the way before I get to the proper review.

i) This is too long.
ii) This shouldn't be read the way you'd read a Hemingway novel--sitting down and intensely fretting through the intense pages of intensity. This should be read the way you watch a TV series: a few chapters here, a few there, letting the various plots lines wrap themselves up, taking a pause while the next one gets going, all the while keeping in mind that there is an overarching point to the thing, but not expecting that overarching point to be the focus of every chapter, let alone every sentence.

Now, having said all that, this is fabulous stuff. Burney gives you exactly what you want from a late eighteenth century novel: heart-rending sentiment, burning satire, and intelligent sociology. The characters are well drawn, and don't 'develop,' because they are people, not characters in a fiction-writing workshop, and people don't develop like that. But they do get entangled in plot, and that's what Burney gives us: incident after incident, all leading us towards a crisis point, whether local (as when Cecilia finally moves out of her first guardian's house) or more general (as at the end of the novel).

Mr. Gosport is an interesting innovation, if you're interested in that kind of thing--he's the intelligent voice of the novel, but he's not particularly involved in anything. In fact, he's really there to let Burney write satirical, sociological essays about the upper class, and they are wonderful things, perhaps the best parts of the book.

Burney was well known to Austen ('Pride and Prejudice' is a phrase from this very book), and that might have skewed some readers' expectations for the worse. Austen is a wonderful novelist, who made genuine advances in the art, but Burney was working in a very different form, from a very different perspective. It's best to know this before diving into this monster of a book; this is not Our Jane. But if you give up looking for Austen, you're likely to find any number of other novelists in there: the Delviles feel like something from late James, for instance, and Mr. Monckton would find himself quite at home in a Trollope novel.

In short, then, Burney was a writer of genius, who had the misfortune to write just before another writer, with a very different genius, changed our expectations of the novel, so that Burney can now feel excessive and even unartistic. But there are real rewards to reading Cecilia. ...more

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Jul 21, 2008 Wealhtheow rated it it was ok

Shelves: historical

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Cecilia Beverly is a young orphan whose relatives left her with a large fortune, three quarelling trustees, and a mind of unsurpassed delicacy and gentility. The first volume is set during the tumultuous time Cecilia spent with one trustee, who "borrows" huge sums of money from her and eventually kills himself to avoid his debts. Cecilia moves back the country, but her Love Interest, a man of good character but very proud parents, follows her there and begs her to marry him. ALAS! According to h Cecilia Beverly is a young orphan whose relatives left her with a large fortune, three quarelling trustees, and a mind of unsurpassed delicacy and gentility. The first volume is set during the tumultuous time Cecilia spent with one trustee, who "borrows" huge sums of money from her and eventually kills himself to avoid his debts. Cecilia moves back the country, but her Love Interest, a man of good character but very proud parents, follows her there and begs her to marry him. ALAS! According to her uncle's will, whoever marries Cecilia must either take her surname or relinquish her vast fortune. Since neither is acceptable to either Cecilia or the man who is supposedly desperately in love with her, they languish apart for a year or so. Eventually, the Love Interest's mother agrees to allow a secret marriage, and in exchange Cecilia will give up all her money. Cecilia agrees, they are married in the most hurried, unexciting ceremony in literary history (it takes less than a paragraph to describe the entire wedding of two characters who have spent ~900 pages pining for each other), and then Love Interest gallops off to France. (He'd shot a man, again described singularly bloodlessly, and needed to escape the law.) Love Interest returns, accuses Cecilia of betraying him, Cecilia goes mad, Love Interest feels guilty, Love Interest's proud parents feel guilty, Cecilia magically regains her senses and everyone forgives each other. Cecilia and Love Interest live happily ever after, especially after another relative, never before mentioned, decides to give them a fortune to replace the one Cecilia gave up.

This was an infuriating book. Entire plots are forgotten about (what about the lawsuit against Cecilia? Doesn't Love Interest ever get in trouble for shooting Monckton?) and a dozen characters exist only to provide "comic" relief and cautionary tales. Cecilia and Devile are witty characters with a wealth of common sense until they fall in love, at which point the book rapidly devolves into a laughable melodrama.

Here's a randomly chosen sample of Burney's style, complete with sixteen commas in a single sentence: "As she was no longer, as hitherto, repairing to a temporary habitation, which at pleasure she might quit, and to which, at a certain period, she could have no possible claim, but to a house which was her own for ever, or, at least, could solely by her own choice be transferred, she determined, as much as was in her power, in quitting her desultory dwellings, to empty her mind of the transactions which had passed in them, and upon entering a house where she was permanently to reside, to make the expulsion of her past sorrows, the basis upon which to establish her future serenity." Holy crap. ...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Kim rated it really liked it

Shelves: r-r, four-star-novels, classics, read-again

Cecilia, or "Memoirs of an Heiress", is the second novel by English author Fanny Burney, published in 1782. Burney was a novelist, diarist and playwright. She wrote in all four novels, eight plays, one biography and twenty volumes of journals and letters. Fanny was the third child in a family of six. Fanny's sisters Esther and Susanna were favored over Fanny by their father, for what he perceived as their superior attractiveness and intelligence. I'm not sure how he felt about the rest of his ch ...more

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Nov 20, 2018 Sotiris Karaiskos rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics, 18th-century

The author of this book is believed that had a great influence on later writers, and this becomes even more apparent in this, which is known amongst others because of this comes the phrase pride and prejudice that I believe something reminds you. Of course, the influence is not limited to one phrase, so reading the book is also an exploratory experience for the history of literature.

Of course, the value of this books is not high only for their historical character, it is high because they are ve The author of this book is believed that had a great influence on later writers, and this becomes even more apparent in this, which is known amongst others because of this comes the phrase pride and prejudice that I believe something reminds you. Of course, the influence is not limited to one phrase, so reading the book is also an exploratory experience for the history of literature.

Of course, the value of this books is not high only for their historical character, it is high because they are very nice novels. After her excellent first book, Evelina, that impressed me very much, the writer seems to want to go one step further. It is, of course, a book that moves in the same context, with the story of a woman of the upper classes approaching adulthood visiting the bustling London and confronted with situations that show everything about the British society of the time, falls in love but finds many difficulties in fulfilling it, but there are several variations. The size of the book is almost double, with its story going through many stages and the writer moves the social critique a step further, talking about the issues of wealth utilization, social inequality, the position of the woman and her need for some degree of independence. Another distinction is that the tone of the book is much more emotional, especially in the second half of the book that dominates the subject of love that has difficulties, which - to return to the subject of the influence of the writer - is part of the literary climate of the era but at the same time, announces a sequel that eventually ends up in the Gothic novel.

All this in a very interesting story, with an adorable heroine that it is easy to identify with her as she tries to do the right thing, to help her fellow human beings, to find true love, is drifting away, is falling victim exploitation, making countless mistakes, finds happiness, loses it, and in general is a woman who is upset by the injustice and superficiality that seems to dominate around her and thus becomes the mean for the author to express her views and hopes for a better society. On the other hand, the size of the book and the fact that the author devotes too many pages to analyze things and talk about what she wants makes the book somewhat tedious and gives the reader the impression that there is a continuous repetition, which makes me appreciate this book less than her first. The patient reader, however, will be rewarded in the end by understanding that this is a very good book that makes much more than telling a beautiful story.

Η συγγραφέας αυτού του βιβλίου θεωρείται ότι είχε μεγάλη επιρροή σε μεταγενέστερους συγγραφείς και αυτό γίνεται φανερό ακόμα περισσότερο σε αυτό, το οποίο είναι γνωστό μεταξύ άλλων γιατί από αυτό προέρχεται η φράση υπερηφάνεια και προκατάληψη που φαντάζομαι κάτι σας θυμίζει. Φυσικά η επιρροή δεν περιορίζεται σε μία φράση και έτσι η ανάγνωση του βιβλίου είναι και μία εμπειρία διερευνητική για την ιστορία της λογοτεχνίας.

Βέβαια η αξία των βιβλίων δεν είναι υψηλή μόνο για τον ιστορικό τους χαρακτήρα, είναι υψηλή γιατί πρόκειται για πολύ ωραία μυθιστορήματα. Μετά το εξαιρετικό πρώτο βιβλίο της, το Evelina, που με είχε εντυπωσιάσει, σε αυτό η συγγραφέας φαίνεται ότι ήθελε να πάει ένα βήμα παρακάτω. Είναι φυσικά ένα βιβλίο που κινείται στο ίδιο πλαίσιο, με την ιστορία του να αφορά μία γυναίκα των ανώτερων τάξεων που πλησιάζοντας την ενηλικίωσή της επισκέπτεται το πολύβουο Λονδίνο και έρχεται αντιμέτωπη με καταστάσεις που δείχνουν όλα για την Βρετανική κοινωνία της εποχής, γνωρίζοντας παράλληλα τον έρωτα και πάρα πολλές δυσκολίες στην εκπλήρωση του, υπάρχουν, όμως, αρκετές διαφοροποιήσεις. Το μέγεθος του βιβλίου είναι σχεδόν διπλάσιο, με την ιστορία του να περνά από πάρα πολλά στάδια και τη συγγραφέα να πηγαίνει την κοινωνική κριτική της ένα βήμα παραπέρα, μιλώντας για τα θέματα της αξιοποίησης του πλούτου, τις κοινωνικές ανισότητες, τη θέση της γυναίκας και την ανάγκη της για κάποιο βαθμό ανεξαρτησίας. Μία άλλη διαφοροποίηση είναι ότι ο τόνος του βιβλίου είναι πολύ περισσότερο συναισθηματικός, ιδιαίτερα στο δεύτερο μισό του βιβλίου που κυριαρχεί το θέμα του έρωτα που έχει δυσκολίες, κάτι που - για να επιστρέψουμε στο θέμα της επιρροής της συγγραφέως - εντάσσεται στο λογοτεχνικό κλίμα της εποχής αλλά παράλληλα προαναγγέλλει μία συνέχεια που θα καταλήξει τελικά στο γοτθικό μυθιστόρημα.

Όλα αυτά μέσα σε μία πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα ιστορία, με μία αξιολάτρευτη ηρωίδα με την οποία είναι εύκολο να ταυτιστείς μαζί της καθώς προσπαθεί να κάνει το σωστό, να βοηθήσει τους συνανθρώπους της, να βρει τον αληθινό έρωτα, παρασύρεται, πέφτει θύμα εκμετάλλευσης, κάνει αμέτρητα λάθη, βρίσκει την ευτυχία, την χάνει και γενικότερα είναι μία γυναίκα που αναστατώνεται από την αδικία και την επιπολαιότητα, που φαίνεται να κυριαρχούν γύρω της και έτσι γίνεται το μέσο για να εκφράσει η συγγραφέας τις απόψεις της και τις ελπίδες της για μία καλύτερη κοινωνία. Βέβαια, από εκεί και πέρα, το μέγεθος του βιβλίου και το γεγονός ότι η συγγραφέας αφιερώνει πάρα πολλές σελίδες για να αναλύσει τα πράγματα και να μιλήσει για αυτά που θέλει κάνουν το βιβλίο κάπως κουραστικό και δημιουργείται η εντύπωση στον αναγνώστη ότι υπάρχει μία συνεχόμενη επανάληψη, κάτι που με κάνει να εκτιμώ αυτό το βιβλίο λιγότερο από το πρώτο της. Ο υπομονετικός αναγνώστης, όμως, θα επιβραβευτεί στο τέλος καταλαβαίνοντας ότι πρόκειται για ένα πολύ καλό βιβλίο που περιλαμβάνει πολύ περισσότερα πράγματα από την αφήγηση μιας όμορφης ιστορίας. ...more

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Apr 16, 2019 Kailey (Luminous Libro) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned-books, classics

Cecilia is a young heiress entrusted to three guardians; the spendthrift Mr. Harrell who only cares about keeping up social appearances at parties, the rich miser Mr. Briggs who lives in squalor and won’t give Cecilia a penny of her fortune until she comes of age, and the haughty Mr. Delville who is determined to keep Cecilia away from his handsome son, Mortimer.

After growing up in the country, Cecilia must learn to navigate the demands of London society, and guard her heart against the numerou Cecilia is a young heiress entrusted to three guardians; the spendthrift Mr. Harrell who only cares about keeping up social appearances at parties, the rich miser Mr. Briggs who lives in squalor and won’t give Cecilia a penny of her fortune until she comes of age, and the haughty Mr. Delville who is determined to keep Cecilia away from his handsome son, Mortimer.

After growing up in the country, Cecilia must learn to navigate the demands of London society, and guard her heart against the numerous suitors who are only interested in her vast fortune. She looks forward to the day when she will come of age, and be able to control her finances and living situation by herself. But the moment she is no longer a minor, all her circumstances become even more complicated, and her relationships spiral out of control. Cecilia must rely on her own inner wisdom and her good heart to salvage a happy life from the wreckage of her youth.

I adored this book! The characters are incredibly real and fascinating. The plot is full of astonishing surprises and dramatic turmoil. There is a duel, and a suicide, financial ruin, mystery, betrayal, secrets, madness, grief, and love, and a lot of hilarious humor. I was laughing and crying and gasping in shock!

The writing is intelligent and weaves a complex tapestry of moods and ideas. Once I reached the end, I was interested to look back and recognize several foreshadowing themes and characters that connect in unexpected ways. Many of the ideas are universal subjects that reflect social interactions and anxieties in any century, and are still applicable today. It was strange and funny to see how people never really change, despite the hundreds of years of history.

Cecilia herself is a wonderful main character. I was completely invested in her story, emotionally attached to her, and engaged with every aspect of her life. She is generous to a fault, and that gets her into trouble. She values her honor and integrity more than anything, willing to sacrifice her happiness in order to fulfill her duty. She is sensitive and smart, preferring the quiet of the country to the bustle of the city. She is also trusting and naïve, believing in the wrong people who take advantage of her, but later in the book she learns some wisdom and begins to take charge of her own life. She is resourceful in the face of tragedy, sensible when others are foolish, and forgiving when people hurt her. She suffers so much in all the drama of the book, but remains strong no matter what happens, and finds purpose and comfort in assisting the poor, donating to good causes, and personally connecting with worthy people who are grateful for her help. Oh, I just love her!

The supporting characters, both men and women, are complex and well-developed. They are memorable and unique, with their own style, their own way of talking and looking and moving. The details are what make these characters so special.

One of my favorite scenes was a masquerade event in London where Cecilia tries to guess who the masked people are, and meets some wild characters. Some of the masked revelers are easy to distinguish because their personalities are so vibrant and unique, and others are shrouded in mystery until later chapters when we learn their true identities.
I was intrigued to find that many of the characters reveal their deepest personalities when their identity is safe behind a mask. The masquerade was like seeing all the madness of society without the thin veneer of refinement. Seeing society as it truly is without the restraints.
And we see the characters as they truly are without their masks of politeness, as they wear a physical mask to hide their faces and their identities. The characters are revealed by their behavior when they think no one knows who they are. There are no consequences, because in the morning, no one will know who was who. Brilliant writing!

My one complaint is that many of the plot devices dragged on for too long. It could have been a much shorter book without losing any of the power of the writing. A shorter story would have kept the momentum going much better.

I loved this book, and I can’t wait to read more from Fanny Burney!
...more

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Jan 25, 2015 Lisa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: english-classic, 2015, 18th-century-classics

In short, Cecilia is an heiress of great fortune who is also blessed with a wealth of beauty, native refinement, and intelligence. She is a year or so from reaching her majority. Until then she must reside with one of her three guardians. These all prove to be a problem. While Jane has told us that an unmarried man of fortune must be in want of a wife, Cecilia's case proves the same for unmarried young ladies. From the minute she is introduced into London society she is beset with the mostly unw In short, Cecilia is an heiress of great fortune who is also blessed with a wealth of beauty, native refinement, and intelligence. She is a year or so from reaching her majority. Until then she must reside with one of her three guardians. These all prove to be a problem. While Jane has told us that an unmarried man of fortune must be in want of a wife, Cecilia's case proves the same for unmarried young ladies. From the minute she is introduced into London society she is beset with the mostly unwanted attentions from conniving suitors and their supporters. The terms of Cecilia's uncle's will does little to dissuade the rank of suitors, expect one. These terms, that her husband must take her surname, seems peculiar to us, but was in fact not uncommon in those days.

Cecilia provides 90 part delight to 10 parts vexation. Any reader with knowledge of 18th century tropes can well guess the source of the vexation. Yet, Cecilia is a wonderful story of amorous suspense abetted by Pride and Prejudice. Janeites, get your pinafores out of a twist; it was Cecilia's Dr. Lyster who coined the phrase. Our Jane would be the borrower.

The novel's length, the vacillations of will and fortune might provide fatiguing to the modern reader to say nothing of the comic characters and their humours. Burney was writing in an era in which many popular novels revolved around the exploits of a man of humour, some prevailing fancy, affinity or bigotry. Take the works of Tobias Smollett. Such character were much enjoyed and prevailed as minor characters into the 19th century, heavily relied on by writers such as Dickens. Modern readers however weary of this sort of humor, though seem to love it in short dose in the form of situation comedies. The best advice to those who find characters like Hobson irksome is to skip their bits. They rarely add to the plot, though sometimes to the confusion. Absolutely no one says anything in 5 words when 50 are to be found. Once again, this is something modern readers often scorn.

Cecilia, Mrs. Devile and Mortimer's vexing vacillations are more understandable when the 18th century context is given full weight. Yes, the end stoops to a bit of melodrama, but for all this, all 1000+ pages of Cecilia are a worthy delight, if you like this sort of thing, and I do. It is hard to pinpoint why this doorstop of a novel is as appealing as it is. The themes of self-knowledge and remaining true to ones own code are part of the allure. The feeling of being so thoroughly drawn into the ethos of another era--the era just, as in absolutely just, after the colonies that became these United States had won their liberty is another. Cecilia's sense of self direction in an era where most women had little is yet another. Then there is the humor, though more sprightly in the first volume which helps to propel one onward. Mr. Gosport's unfailing guidance of Cecilia as she navigates her new social circles is especially fun. Other characters added for comic relief are also enjoyable - Lady Honoria, Mr. Meadows. The suspense of Cecilia's romantic dealings is quite intriguing as well. The modern reader might be annoyed with the depiction of Cecilia as a paragon of perfection, but please be kind here. Some of us just can't help being practically perfect. Don't judge.

My favorite character aside from the beleaguered Cecilia is Mr. Albany. At first, he figures as a cypher, then becomes instrumental to the denouement. There are many delightful characters that I will not soon forget. ...more

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Mar 18, 2019 Rikke rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-books, romance, classics

Jane Austen was inspired by Fanny Burney. To such a degree that the famous phrase Pride and Prejudice first appeared in Cecilia. Austen later made that particular phrase immortal. Catherine Morland, the wonderful heroine of Austen's Northanger Abbey, even reads Cecilia and praises it to the skies.

It's easy to see why.

While Cecilia is a melodramatic tale filled with ill-timed declarations of love, suicidal moneylenders, pretentious lords, many faintings and even nights spent in fever-induced ravi Jane Austen was inspired by Fanny Burney. To such a degree that the famous phrase Pride and Prejudice first appeared in Cecilia. Austen later made that particular phrase immortal. Catherine Morland, the wonderful heroine of Austen's Northanger Abbey, even reads Cecilia and praises it to the skies.

It's easy to see why.

While Cecilia is a melodramatic tale filled with ill-timed declarations of love, suicidal moneylenders, pretentious lords, many faintings and even nights spent in fever-induced ravings, it is at its core a very forward-thinking novel about a woman who cannot marry, because she needs to keep her last name in order to inherit her fortune.

What does a last name signify? Quite a lot, if you read through this novel. Cecilia is almost denied love entirely because a last name not only is associated with identity or family history; but honor and the obligation to immortalize the man's family as well. Cecilia is almost obliged to throw all of this - and her inheritance - away in order to satisfy society's expectations.

This powerful message lies beneath a satiric portrait of the upper class in 1800's London. Burney paints London in vivid colours and creates an absolutely mesmerizing view of a metropolitan city in the middle of the industrial revolution. The characters that populates this London of the past are equally hilarious and infuriating. Burney masters this comic balance to perfection.

The title character Cecilia is a true saint; a little too naive for her own good and quite prone to fainting but as a symbol of purity, she works quite well. She is surrounded by such a comic cast of characters; the silly-minded Mrs. Harrell, the even more naive Mr. Arnott, the raving and almost unintelligible Mr. Briggs and the brilliant Delvile-family, lead by the young Mortimer who is as passionate as Cecilia is pure. God, I loved them all. After all, I did spent a 1000 pages in their company.

Burney doesn't master the depth of her characters as well as Austen; but she is able to invent and describe them as well as Dickens.

While Cecilia is a rather long novel, it is worth every single page. It could certainly have been concluded faster – but what's the fun in that? I enjoyed every single page; it's one of those book you live in while you read.

“Her next solicitude was to furnish herself with a well-chosen collection of books: and this employment, which to a lover of literature, young and ardent in its pursuit, is perhaps the mind's first luxury, proved a source of entertainment so fertile and delightful that it left her nothing to wish.” ...more

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Dec 07, 2010 Jaylia3 rated it really liked it

Though her parents and the uncle who raised her have died, life should be almost perfect for open-hearted Cecilia. She has inherited enough money to be independent and to live the life that is her ideal, righting wrongs and helping the less privileged. Unfortunately, anything in this long book that could go awry does. Cecelia is not quite 21, and until she is of age she needs to reside with one of the guardians her uncle has carefully but misguidedly chosen. The first guardian, the husband of a ...more

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Aug 11, 2009 Emily rated it did not like it · review of another edition

One might think Cecelia would be right up my alley. I love social commentary with a healthy dash of romance, I enjoyed Burney's Evelina and I've reread Austen too many times so it was time to branch out. I really cannot recommend this book to anyone. I read the unabridged version, being a snob, and it was somewhere around 950 pages long. I read the first four hundred or so then decided I couldn't take reading about her vicissitudes and skipped to the last 100 pages. I have never done this before ...more

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Mar 04, 2018 Aqsa (On Hiatus) marked it as to-read

So, I thought I'd read this one and the moment I saw 1362 pages, I didn't lose a moment to close it. I don't wanna start a book so long and then get stuck somewhere in the middle :/

What to do?? Help?? ...more

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Jul 24, 2008 Rebecca rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics

Tis great fun. Relentlessly plagiarised by Austen. Although, malice 'n' insularity are Jane's own work. Credit where credit's due. :p Towards the end, one of the characters even proclaims:
"The whole of this unfortunate business has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE." (Burney's capitalisation, not mine.)

Anyway... 1780s heiress must get husband to take her name. Complications ensue. Influential on Dickens, too. Georgian society depicted in entirety.

*covets flouncy frocks*

*points and laughs a ...more

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Jul 27, 2017 Hannah Polley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, frances-burney

I have adored Frances Burney ever since I read Evelina and absolutely fell in love with it. So I then bought Camilla and Cecelia immediately. I dithered between giving Cecelia 4 or 5 stars as if it was the only book I had read by the author it would have been 5 stars but it just doesn't feel quite so amazing as Evelina and Camilla so I have relegated it to 4 stars. However, it is still a wonderful book full of drama and detail.

Cecelia is a young woman of beauty and intelligence. In addition to I have adored Frances Burney ever since I read Evelina and absolutely fell in love with it. So I then bought Camilla and Cecelia immediately. I dithered between giving Cecelia 4 or 5 stars as if it was the only book I had read by the author it would have been 5 stars but it just doesn't feel quite so amazing as Evelina and Camilla so I have relegated it to 4 stars. However, it is still a wonderful book full of drama and detail.

Cecelia is a young woman of beauty and intelligence. In addition to that, she has a fortune of £10000 and an estate that will give her £3000 a year on top of that. However, when her uncle dies 8 months before her 21st birthday, Cecelia is given over to the protection of three guardians until she can claim her fortune.

Cecelia is a wonderful character and I like how Burney gives her everything, including a love of charity and willingness to help the poor. However, a young woman of beauty and fortune is always going to be followed by a succession of men and Cecelia's life is full of drama once she is given over to her wholly unsuitable guardians.

Cecelia is duped out of her £10000 before she is even old enough to inherit it. However, since she will still have £3000 a year she is not too heartbroken. However, the £3000 a year comes with a clause - whoever marries her has to take her surname rather than the other way round. It was a common practice at the time with an heiress but sadly Cecelia falls in love with a man who's family overwhelmingly object to her on that basis.

Across the course of the book, Cecelia is torn between several different people and her principles and is driven almost to insanity. The book does have a happyish ending but not overly so in that by marrying the man she loves, Cecelia has to give up her remaining fortune and can no longer help the poor like she did formerly.

There is a lot more that happens in this book than I have described and even though it is over 900 pages, I would recommend everyone reading it as you will only get the full breath of detail that way. I did find the first 50 pages a bit hard to get into but couldn't put it down after that. Again when it gets to the end it might be a trifle too long but from the introduction in this edition, it seems that Burney felt that herself and wanted more time to edit it.

I also love Burney herself, she was certainly ahead of her time and inspired Jane Austen. There is even a sentence in this book that refers to 'PRIDE and PREJUDICE'. Austen was a fan of Burney's work so it is not hard to think where her title may have come from. I love Austen but I prefer Burney, her work has more drama in that in Austen's stories the real drama tends to happen to minor characters e.g. secret marriages but it Burney's works it happens to the heroines.

I also like the portrayal of men in this novel contrasted against the time it was written. Most of the men depicted are horrible and all are flawed. Even the love interest is not perfect and there were times when I did not want Cecelia to end up with him.

Definitely a must read! And then go and read her other works! ...more

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Mar 15, 2018 Rosemary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books

Cecilia Beverley is an orphaned heiress. For the few months until she reaches the age of 21, she has three guardians, none of whom is ideal. One starts to eat into her fortune right away, and other forces are acting against her, while a whole host of suitors try to win her (and/or the money).

First published in 1782, this is a very long novel. Mostly that’s fine, but occasionally I found it tiresome, especially when we have page after page of characters who do nothing except provide comic relief ...more

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Jul 04, 2016 Laura Frey (Reading in Bed) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Morty, Morty, Morty. You know, people complain about asshole, alpha-male protaginists in, like, Bronte novels, but I am craving one of those after suffering through his indecisive momma's boy bullshit. At least Heathcliff knew what he wanted! ...more

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Nov 13, 2020 Matthew Mansell rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favourite

Ah ha! Thanks Burney, Cheers Burney, Ta-da Burney! You and your Cecilia, the MOST BEAUTIFUL of all Heroines because Burney SCRAPPED the idea to make her Ugly because why else is MANSFIELD PARK (actually the best Austen) overlooked so much (the answer is probably something to do because you can't really get your knickers in a twist over it)? Well Cecilia is getting her knickers in a twist over her FORTUNE. Welcome to the land of Burney, where everything it 'proto-', 18th Century Lit is all over t Ah ha! Thanks Burney, Cheers Burney, Ta-da Burney! You and your Cecilia, the MOST BEAUTIFUL of all Heroines because Burney SCRAPPED the idea to make her Ugly because why else is MANSFIELD PARK (actually the best Austen) overlooked so much (the answer is probably something to do because you can't really get your knickers in a twist over it)? Well Cecilia is getting her knickers in a twist over her FORTUNE. Welcome to the land of Burney, where everything it 'proto-', 18th Century Lit is all over the place, lots of time spent focusing on the Psychological novel because the History and Romance Fictions are SO over by 1781, all hail JACOBIN REALISM, ha!

Cecilia is an unreliable narrator because she is told how to think etc by society Burney exploits this for dramatic effect and Cecilia is always in a lose-lose scenario (because that's just how life is, for women, not men). Burney ruins her heroine over the course of 941 pages, pushes her to insanity and doesn't really fully bring her back from the brink in the last 20 pages, nice speech by Dr. Lyster who basically sums up the plot in about a paragraph, name one more novel more fitting of the title PRIDE and PREJUDICE other than this one?! Impossible!

Shocking gunplay from bored contemptuous men, Cecilia bores with the cast of the novel as quickly as we do, a true reflection, a true character, so real and relatable, well THANK YOU Burney, for such an eventual conservative and guarded old lady, 30 year old Frances was a right charmer oooooh.

So this novel really tears apart the themes of society that the Post-Modernists were OBSESSED OMG about, the entire novel is just a heavy ironic sigh, like pull yourself together because Cecilia is DONE.

Cecilia is naive, of course, but she charges into socialisation head-on, good for her, meets a world that moves at her like a killer tornado though, maybe figuratively loses a limb or two (because oh my the finances in this book are ridiculous and complicated but she basically gets conned out of her inheritance, the set-up for the novel being she has to marry a man willing to take her surname, lol good luck combating male pride, and then she gets it all, but once she is initially conned out of her money she's then framed as a criminal for idk what to be honest but she basically freaks out as you would, sigh), so you've got your slimy London a la Dickens, but Burney definitely looks forward to her last novel The Wanderer with lots of melancholic Romantic imprisonment, bless.

...more

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May 05, 2020 Colleen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-to-read-before-you-die, fiction

This book is somewhat hard to review because I listened to the audiobook which was recorded by volunteer readers. Unfortunately, it was the worst recorded audiobook I've ever encountered. One of the readers was a non-English speaker and didn't know English pronunciation, sentence structure, punctuation, phrasing, intonation, etc., so it was nearly unintelligible in some chapters. Some of the readers were excellent though. However, since the book was so long....and parts of the tale were so drawn ...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Verity Brown rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Jane Austen fans

I read Evelina for a class back in college, and I found it amusing enough (although not as amusing as The Female Quixote: Or the Adventures of Arabella, which was my favorite book from that class). But I developed a taste for the literature of that era, and I've been wanting to read more by Fanny Burney.

I was delighted to find that this book was better written than Evelina. And I was amazed to discover the very real influence of this book on Jane Austen. Admittedly, Austen far exceeded Burney in ...more

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May 28, 2014 Andrea Lundgren rated it it was ok

I would not recommend it save for those who wish to gain a fresh understanding and appreciation for Jane Austen by reading one of her predecessors and seeing how Burney handles characters who are similar to some of those in Austen's books.

The book was well written, but I felt the character of Cecilia was inconsistent--she goes from having self-command and the ready wit of an Elizabeth Bennett to being as flustered and bashful as Fanny Price. The characters were interesting, but rather wordy and ...more

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May 08, 2017 M.M. Strawberry Library & Reviews rated it it was ok

Shelves: england, classic, europe, 18th-century

I really liked the premise of this book. After reading Pamela by Samuel Richardson, I was ready for a stronger heroine. The prose and writing is good (for a 18th century novel) but the ending infuriated me.

Granted, Cecilia's uncle's codicil about her husband taking her name or her losing the fortune was weird, but I found it refreshing and hoped that Cecilia would find a man who loved her enough to take on her name. Yes, yes, I know it was the 18th century and men liked being macho and proving t ...more

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Jun 27, 2019 Mary rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 28/06/2019
What a long, painful, overly drawn and lengthened novel.

Whoa. Whoh.

This novel hurt my eye balls. 😳😳😳👀👀👀

Getting to the point (unlike the book); this book was, in the first 5-7 chapters, quite comical. I laughed. It was funny. But then nothing much came from it. The novel in the beginning picked up but then just slowed right down.

Soooo many chapters were just useless- annoying. They were either the thoughts of Cecilia or further explanation, delving, into the characters of the book. ...more

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Mar 21, 2018 Lavan Zerach rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Lavan by: Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Shelves: fiction, read_in_2018, ebook, 1001beforeyoudie, 18th_century, novel_of_manners, historical_fiction, tome, 5_stars, english

" 'The pitiful prevalence of general conformity extirpates genius, and murders originality; the man is brought up, not as if he were 'the noblest work of God,' but as a mere ductile machine of human formation; he is early taught that he must neither consult his understanding, lest, unhappily for his commerce with the world, his understanding should be averse to fools, and provoke him to despise them; and his inclinations to the tyranny of perpetual restraint, and give him courage to abjure it.' ...more

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Feb 06, 2010 Lynne-marie rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Barbara McIntire or any JA fan

I was interested to know what Jane Austen was reading that moved her to be an author, and this surely must have made an impression on her because it is pretty clear in the ending where PRIDE and PREJUDICE are mention three times in a row within a short space in an editorial diatribe, that they furnished the eventual name of one of her best known novels. Of this novel, itself, I may say that it gave me more insight into what the state of literature was like at the time JA was writing -- one heart ...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Amber rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-dont-own, frost-library-candidates, further-restoration-explorations, expanding-my-literary-knowledge, boxall-1001

I loved this more than I thought I would.

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Aug 20, 2015 Doreen Petersen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: paranormal

A really well written paranormal book with many twists and turns. I would recommend this one.

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Sep 12, 2019 Aline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: harvard-senior

Funny, progressive, and fascinating. It makes me sad that it is so overlooked, but I cannot wait to write my thesis on this!

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Dec 12, 2019 Becky rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2019goodrule-old, 2019reviews, shareatea2019

First sentence: “Peace to the spirits of my honoured parents, respected be their remains, and immortalized their virtues! may time, while it moulders their frail relicks to dust, commit to tradition the record of their goodness; and Oh, may their orphan-descendant be influenced through life by the remembrance of their purity, and be solaced in death, that by her it was unsullied!” Such was the secret prayer with which the only survivor of the Beverley family quitted the abode of her youth, and r ...more

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May 13, 2017 Leonie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: eighteenth-century

A beautiful and virtuous young heiress has less than a year to go until she comes of age is leaving the country to live in London with Mr Harrell one of her three guardians. Her late uncle has appointed has appointed Mr Harrell, the husband of her childhood friend, Mr Briggs, an eccentric and off-putting miser and Mr Delvile, a gentleman from an old family who is absurdly proud. Cecilia soon realises that she is in an unfortunate position as her childhood friend and her husband lead a shallow ex A beautiful and virtuous young heiress has less than a year to go until she comes of age is leaving the country to live in London with Mr Harrell one of her three guardians. Her late uncle has appointed has appointed Mr Harrell, the husband of her childhood friend, Mr Briggs, an eccentric and off-putting miser and Mr Delvile, a gentleman from an old family who is absurdly proud. Cecilia soon realises that she is in an unfortunate position as her childhood friend and her husband lead a shallow extravagant social whirl of a life. Cecilia pines for rational conversation and true affection and learns the human cost of the Harrells' extravagance: honest workmen and their families are suffering because the Harrells refuse to pay what is due to them. Cecilia feels that the relief of the poor is the true purpose of her great wealth. She is emotionally blackmailed into lending the Harrells large sums of money but regrets wasting money on such a hopeless cause. She hopes to escape from the Harrells but is hindered by the defects of her other two options.

Mr Delvile comes out ahead of Mr Briggs as his wife and son tip the balance. Cecilia feels greatly drawn to Mrs Delvile who shares her husband's unreasonable family pride but apart from this important flaw has a high moral and intellectual tone. Cecilia and the young Mortimer Delvile are drawn to one another but their attraction is blocked first by a series of irritating circumstances which make it appear as though Cecilia's affections are already engaged, then by the family pride. Cecilia's ancestry is only vaguely adequate but the real obstacle is a clause in her uncle's will that if she marries she will lose her fortune if her husband doesn't take her name. I was put off reading this novel for years because I knew this was the major plot point and how it turned out. I dislike Obstacle Fiction in general where everything goes wrong and I found the idea of having to take this obstacle seriously too annoying. In the event, this potential name change isn't represented as a serious, gendered obstacle, really. The book treats the clause as a pretty normal thing in the circumstances and makes it clear that for most people it would not be an obstacle; it's just that this one guy's family are weirdos.

Mortimer struggles with the family pride name issue before telling Cecilia that he loves her so much that it doesn't matter to him, in a scene that is very similar to Mr Darcy's first proposal but less stiff-necked. His parents, however, are not budging. Cecilia never accepts the validity of their position but, being so virtuous, she naturally takes filial obedience very seriously, as well as feeling too much pride herself to push in somewhere she isn't wanted. The conflict between duty and inclination is painful for Cecilia but it is never in question which she will choose. The problem is that because duty in this case is defined solely by other people's feelings her knowledge of her duty fluctuates frustratingly out of her control.

The conflict is made more painful because Cecilia is invested in her relationship with Mrs Delvile as well as with Mortimer. Mrs Delvile is painfully torn between her great affection for Cecilia and her adamant, unquestionable conviction that Mortimer must not change his name. Cecilia is only able to maintain her affection for Mrs Delvile because, being so virtuous and forgiving, she is willing to occupy her point of view and see that her feelings are real to her and that, feeling as she does, she ought to stick to her guns. There is a constant interchange of painful forgiveness and overlooking causes of resentment between -- well, I was going to say Cecilia and Mrs Delvile, but really between them and Mortimer as a group of three and between Cecilia and Mortimer as well. This is also the case with Cecilia's friend Henrietta who has a crush on Mortimer. Characters' interests conflict, even where there is the highest level of affection and sympathy.

One of the things that I wondered about most while reading the novel was the degree to which features only work because of the novel's specific moment in time. The language is one of these features.

This is how the characters speak in moments of high drama (which are a lot of moments):

"No, we will not part!" cried Delvile, with increasing vehemence; "if you force me, madam, from her, you will drive me to distraction! What is there in this world that can offer me a recompense? And what can pride even to the proudest afford as an equivalent? Her perfections you acknowledge, her greatness of mind is like your own; she has generously given me her heart, -- Oh sacred and fascinating charge! Shall I, after such a deposite, consent to an eternal separation? Repeal, repeal your sentence, my Cecilia! let us live to ourselves and our consciences, and leave the vain prejudices of the world to those who can be paid by them for the loss of all besides!"

"Is this conflict, then," said Mrs Delvile, "to last forever? Oh, end it, Mortimer, finish it and make me happy! she is just, and will forgive you, she is noble-minded, and will honour you. Fly, then, at this critical moment, for in flight alone is your safety; and then will your father see the son of his hopes, and then shall the fond blessings of your idolizing mother soothe all your affliction, and soften all your regret!"

"Oh madam!" cried Delvile, "for mercy, for humanity, forbear this cruel supplication!"

"Nay, more than supplication, you have my commands; commands you have never yet disputed, and misery, ten-fold misery, will follow their disobedience. Hear me, Mortimer, for I speak prophetically; I know your heart, I know it to be formed for rectitude and duty, or destined by their neglect to repentance and horror."

It occurred to me that we're kind of used to hearing Elizabethan/Jacobean non-naturalistic literary language, but the eighteenth-century equivalent doesn't get aired in the same way, and I'd be interested to hear actors make this kind of thing sound natural. This kind of dialogue always makes me think of musicals; characters open their mouths and express themselves in this performative "pretend this is how the world is" kind of way. Novels of this period get away with this high-flown stuff without having to make it a whole "I'm doing a thing" thing -- or being just plain bad, of course.

I was also struck with the character of Cecilia. While the concept of her character is very simple -- she's perfectly balanced and right about everything apart from sometimes being just too generous -- there were aspects that didn't feel so familiar as I might have expected. What really struck me about Cecilia was that her great instinct for goodness is rooted in her need to respect herself. This is explicitly stated many times. When she feels unsure she has made the right decision she decides she needs to recover her self-esteem as her first priority. I'm not actually sure I've ever seen self-worth uncritically presented as the primary, central motivation for goodness. I can certainly imagine some Victorian novelists presenting this strain of thought critically or at least ambivalently as self-sufficient, in the disapproving Victorian inflection of the word. And Cecilia is self-sufficient; she has no one she can look to for ethical guidance. The influence that has most impact on her is the Delviles' disproval of her marrying Mortimer and while she submits to this she never respects it, never regards it as anything other than an unfortunate foible. She has no one in her life who matches her in both principles and capability. Mortimer is a worthy young man, of course, but she can't rely on him to make decisions about their potential marriage that will allow her to keep her own good opinion. She is not completely correct in all her decisions and perceptions, as she is both young and faced with a lot of tough choices, but she comes very near perfection in her serious, sensible but liberal and sympathetic way. She has the greatest delicacy and rectitude and sometimes faints with sensibility and is therefore irreproachably good and feminine but that emphasis on her sense and judgement and risk-aversion means that she could come across as dull or stolid, because she doesn't strike either a sweet, mellifluous damsel note, or a more challenging, strident note of principled, intelligent woman at odds with the ethics of her environment -- even though that is what she is. I think Burney avoids making Cecilia a prig but I'm not quite sure how. I do wonder if it has something to do with her being able to play her straighter, without it that choice making her a writer who doesn't understand when something is too clichéd to be used so straight and also well. As it is, Burney does undercut some of her high drama and high tone with farce and sly commentary, though not as often as Austen does.

The novel is pessimistic about the world and the possibility of solutions to its sufferings and problems. Cecilia is better than the rest of it but she must compromise with it, not reform it or defeat it or exist in supreme isolation.

Five stars because although there is some padding I think Burney achieves her aims, which are layered and ambitious, and I enjoyed it. ...more

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About Frances Burney

Frances Burney

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Also known as Fanny Burney and, after her marriage, as Madame d’Arblay. Frances Burney was a novelist, diarist and playwright. In total, she wrote four novels, eight plays, one biography and twenty volumes of journals and letters.

Books by Frances Burney

The Complete Novels of Fanny Burney (Annotated)

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“Her next solicitude was to furnish herself with a well-chosen collection of books: and this employment, which to a lover of literature, young and ardent in its pursuit, is perhaps the mind's first luxury, proved a source of entertainment so fertile and delightful that it left her nothing to wish.” — 4 likes

“...let me counsel you to remember that a lady, whether so called form birth or only from fortune, should never degrade herself by being put on a level with writers, and such sort of people.” — 3 likes

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