What do you think?
Rate this book
Journals and Letters
Novelist and playwright Frances (Fanny) Burney, 1752-1840, was also a prolific writer of journals and letters, beginning with the diary she started at fifteen and continuing until the end of her eventful life. From her youth in London high society to a period in the court of Queen Charlotte and her years interned in France with her husband Alexandre d'Arblay during the Napoleonic Wars, she captured the changing times around her, creating brilliantly comic and candid portraits of those she encountered - including the 'mad' King George, Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick and a charismatic Napoleon Bonaparte. She also describes, in her most moving piece, undergoing a mastectomy at fifty-nine without anaesthetic. Whether a carefree young girl or a mature woman, Fanny Burney's forthright, intimate and wickedly perceptive voice brings her world powerfully to life.
590 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1840
29 people are currently reading
998 people want to read
About the author
Frances Burney
546 books444 followersAlso 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 1, 2020
When she was in her late sixties, Frances Burney set herself the task of going through her late father's letters and diaries to see what might be worth publishing. Charles Burney had been a respected music historian and a prominent society figure, regularly in the drawing-rooms of the great and good: who wouldn't want to read about his encounters with the likes of Diderot, Rousseau, Dr Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, and similar luminaries? ‘I had the full expectation of detail, anecdote, description, and conversation,’ Fanny writes to her sister Esther; ‘But alas, what a falling off ensues! He contents himself with Naming all these people, saying where they met, mentioning the first day he made their acquaintance…There is little more than Copying the minutes of engagements from his Pocket Books…’
The art of the diarist, she suddenly realises, does not come easily to everyone. It was not something she had thought much about before, because it was an art that for her was almost innate. When she, Burney, takes tea with Johnson, the encounters are recorded in her journals in staggering bursts of dialogue, body language and apropos description, entirely like scenes plucked from one of her novels.
It means that this whole collection can, in fact, be read with as much ease and delight as a novel (but a novel peopled by such characters as Dr Johnson, George III, Boswell, Napoleon, and Talleyrand). Partly this is because, as a one-volume selection from some twenty-four volumes of complete journals and letters, this represents the crème de la crème; but partly I think it's just because she was incapable of writing other than with novelistic awareness, wit and detail.
This is the more surprising because, in many ways, she is not the sort of person who should make a good memoirist. She is not remotely interested in cheap gossip, which is the sort of thing that you normally want from reading someone's diary. Her five years at court give no indication that everyone at the time was openly sleeping with everyone else, though things were so indiscreet that even the newspapers were full of it. She was too well-bred to have recorded such things even if she'd noticed them; but I honestly think that she had trained herself to ignore it all on a psychological level.
Her shyness, amounting to prudishness (a loaded term, but one that the editors of this volume use, so I'll follow their lead), is remarkable even by the standards of her time. This is clear from the many conversations where she is offended, and the person she's talking to obviously has no idea why. Among other things, it made her completely impervious to flirtation; here's one example where the poet Edward Jerningham started talking to her about literature at a party in 1783:
This gives a pretty good idea both of her attitude, and of how fluently written all her entries are. She is similarly conservative in other areas. She is utterly ‘horrored’ when Lydia Rogers White confesses her atheistic inclinations to her (acquired from reading Hume); and, as might be imagined from someone who served as Queen Charlotte's Keeper of the Robes, she is a confirmed monarchist and Tory (‘never, I am sure, can any set of wretches less deserve quarter or pity,’ she writes of the Gordon Rioters). Late in her life, she advises her son that any bride would be acceptable provided she isn't a ‘[religious] Dissenter, or Republican’.
Occasionally – notably in her relationship with the maligned Hester Thrale – these attitudes can reflect badly on her. But most of the time, ‘conservative’ gives entirely the wrong impression of Burney, because she does not generally come across as reactionary or staid – on the contrary, everything she writes is infused with a sense of wit, and fun, and a thoroughgoing fascination with other people's behaviour and opinions, which lasts all her life. In her seventies, noticing someone laughing at her during a visit to Kensington Palace, she writes good-humouredly: ‘I am always so well pleased when I can be beguiled into a little simper myself, that I am ever ready to rejoice when I can produce a sly smile, or an honest Grin, or an unguarded Horselaugh in any of my neighbours.’
I certainly laughed out loud several times reading this book. Many parts, however, are not funny at all. Her letter of 1812, in which she describes undergoing a mastectomy in France, has got to be one of the most remarkable documents in the history of correspondence. I had read parts of it before, in histories of medicine, but seeing it here in context was overwhelming. There is no anaesthetic, of course – she is just given a ‘wine cordial’ beforehand, and a cambric handkerchief placed over her face to try and prevent her from observing the operation. (Unfortunately, it is transparent: she immediately sees her bed surrounded by the ‘7 men and my nurse’ who are there to restrain her when necessary.) Her description of what happens next takes up several pages and is extraordinary in its visceral precision.
It is especially raw because, as she tells her sister, she cannot bring herself even to read the letter back to herself to revise it, so upsetting is the memory. But to produce this account, so powerful and uneuphemistic, took unusual strength and honesty.
Fortunately, when you read it now, the heft of book still remaining in your right hand tells you that she survived to write plenty more. In fact she survived, perhaps, too long for her own comfort, outliving all five of her siblings, as well as her beloved husband Alexandre d'Arblay, and ultimately even her only son, who died suddenly in his early forties. It was a formidable span, especially for its time – she was born under George II, served as a courtier under George III, saw out the reigns of George IV and William IV and survived to write letters about the behaviour of the new Queen Victoria.
And she is a total joy to spend time with, either despite or because of the fact that she clearly bought into contemporary conventions more than some of her famous peers. I think this is one of the most amazing collections of diaries and letters out there, and it leaves you as moved by her life as you are awed by her writing ability. This wasn't, apparently, a skill she inherited from her father, but it was certainly one she laid out for future generations to learn from, and delight in.
The art of the diarist, she suddenly realises, does not come easily to everyone. It was not something she had thought much about before, because it was an art that for her was almost innate. When she, Burney, takes tea with Johnson, the encounters are recorded in her journals in staggering bursts of dialogue, body language and apropos description, entirely like scenes plucked from one of her novels.
It means that this whole collection can, in fact, be read with as much ease and delight as a novel (but a novel peopled by such characters as Dr Johnson, George III, Boswell, Napoleon, and Talleyrand). Partly this is because, as a one-volume selection from some twenty-four volumes of complete journals and letters, this represents the crème de la crème; but partly I think it's just because she was incapable of writing other than with novelistic awareness, wit and detail.
This is the more surprising because, in many ways, she is not the sort of person who should make a good memoirist. She is not remotely interested in cheap gossip, which is the sort of thing that you normally want from reading someone's diary. Her five years at court give no indication that everyone at the time was openly sleeping with everyone else, though things were so indiscreet that even the newspapers were full of it. She was too well-bred to have recorded such things even if she'd noticed them; but I honestly think that she had trained herself to ignore it all on a psychological level.
Her shyness, amounting to prudishness (a loaded term, but one that the editors of this volume use, so I'll follow their lead), is remarkable even by the standards of her time. This is clear from the many conversations where she is offended, and the person she's talking to obviously has no idea why. Among other things, it made her completely impervious to flirtation; here's one example where the poet Edward Jerningham started talking to her about literature at a party in 1783:
‘Have you read,’ he said, ‘the new Book that has had such a run in France, “Les Liaisons dangeureuses”? – ’
‘No,’ answered I, not much pleased at the Name, ‘I have not even heard of it.’
‘Indeed? – it has made so much noise in France I am quite surprised at that. It is not, indeed, a work that recommends very strict morality, but you, we all know, may look into any work without being hurt by it.’
I felt hurt then, however, and very gravely answered, ‘I cannot give myself that praise, as I never look into any Books that could hurt me.’
He Bowed, and smiled, and said that was ‘very right’, and added – ‘This Book is written by an officer; and he says there are no characters nor situations in it that he has not himself seen.’
‘That, then,’ cried I, ‘will with me always be a reason to as little desire seeing the Officer, as his Book.’
He looked a little simple at this, but pretended to approve it very much. However, I fancy it will save him the trouble of enquiring into my readings any more. I was really provoked with him, however, and though he was most obsequiously civil to me, I only spoke to him in answer, after this little Dialogue.
This gives a pretty good idea both of her attitude, and of how fluently written all her entries are. She is similarly conservative in other areas. She is utterly ‘horrored’ when Lydia Rogers White confesses her atheistic inclinations to her (acquired from reading Hume); and, as might be imagined from someone who served as Queen Charlotte's Keeper of the Robes, she is a confirmed monarchist and Tory (‘never, I am sure, can any set of wretches less deserve quarter or pity,’ she writes of the Gordon Rioters). Late in her life, she advises her son that any bride would be acceptable provided she isn't a ‘[religious] Dissenter, or Republican’.
Occasionally – notably in her relationship with the maligned Hester Thrale – these attitudes can reflect badly on her. But most of the time, ‘conservative’ gives entirely the wrong impression of Burney, because she does not generally come across as reactionary or staid – on the contrary, everything she writes is infused with a sense of wit, and fun, and a thoroughgoing fascination with other people's behaviour and opinions, which lasts all her life. In her seventies, noticing someone laughing at her during a visit to Kensington Palace, she writes good-humouredly: ‘I am always so well pleased when I can be beguiled into a little simper myself, that I am ever ready to rejoice when I can produce a sly smile, or an honest Grin, or an unguarded Horselaugh in any of my neighbours.’
I certainly laughed out loud several times reading this book. Many parts, however, are not funny at all. Her letter of 1812, in which she describes undergoing a mastectomy in France, has got to be one of the most remarkable documents in the history of correspondence. I had read parts of it before, in histories of medicine, but seeing it here in context was overwhelming. There is no anaesthetic, of course – she is just given a ‘wine cordial’ beforehand, and a cambric handkerchief placed over her face to try and prevent her from observing the operation. (Unfortunately, it is transparent: she immediately sees her bed surrounded by the ‘7 men and my nurse’ who are there to restrain her when necessary.) Her description of what happens next takes up several pages and is extraordinary in its visceral precision.
Yet – when the dreadful steel was plunged into the breast – cutting through veins – arteries – flesh – nerves – I needed no injunctions not to restrain my cries. I began a scream that lasted unintermittingly during the whole time of the incision – and I almost marvel that it rings not in my Ears still! so excruciating was the agony. When the wound was made, and the instrument was withdrawn, the pain seemed undiminished, for the air that suddenly rushed into those delicate parts felt like a mass of minute but sharp and forked poniards, that were tearing the edges of the wound – but when again I felt the instrument – describing a curve – cutting against the grain, if I may so say, while the flesh resisted in a manner so forcible as to oppose and tire the hand of the operator, who was forced to change from the right to the left – then, indeed, I thought I must have expired.
It is especially raw because, as she tells her sister, she cannot bring herself even to read the letter back to herself to revise it, so upsetting is the memory. But to produce this account, so powerful and uneuphemistic, took unusual strength and honesty.
Fortunately, when you read it now, the heft of book still remaining in your right hand tells you that she survived to write plenty more. In fact she survived, perhaps, too long for her own comfort, outliving all five of her siblings, as well as her beloved husband Alexandre d'Arblay, and ultimately even her only son, who died suddenly in his early forties. It was a formidable span, especially for its time – she was born under George II, served as a courtier under George III, saw out the reigns of George IV and William IV and survived to write letters about the behaviour of the new Queen Victoria.
And she is a total joy to spend time with, either despite or because of the fact that she clearly bought into contemporary conventions more than some of her famous peers. I think this is one of the most amazing collections of diaries and letters out there, and it leaves you as moved by her life as you are awed by her writing ability. This wasn't, apparently, a skill she inherited from her father, but it was certainly one she laid out for future generations to learn from, and delight in.
July 1, 2017
This book is a delight. Frances Burney is a very interesting figure, and she led an absurdly interesting life. Reading her journals and letters, at least in this compressed form (the complete edition extends to over twenty volumes) feels like reading one of those historical novels where the protagonist just happens to run into every famous contemporary you could name.
Except that this is true! Burney really was an acquaintance or an intimate of Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, William Wilberforce—not to mention Germaine de Staël, Talleyrand, Sheridan, the entire British royal family. She can’t even stop off overnight at an inn on the way to Bath without discovering a ten-year-old Thomas Lawrence as the innkeeper’s son. Burney was an eye witness at the trial of Warren Hastings; George III chased her round a garden during his first bout of madness; Madame David showed her round her husband’s studio, keenly observing this English expat’s reactions to two portraits of Napoleon; she attended the famous ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo (Thackeray used her as a source for his episode in Vanity Fair.)
All this would be interesting enough anyway, even if narrated by someone far more plodding, but the quality of Burney’s writing exalts it. She has the eye of the novelist she was, and the ear of the comic dramatist she surely should have been (Johnson and Sheridan urged her on, but her revered father, the music historian Charles Burney, felt this would be too racy a literary path for a young lady to pursue.) Burney was clearly writing for posterity. Some of her longer, set-piece letters, such as her astonishingly graphic and almost unreadable description of a mastectomy she went through without anesthetic in Paris, or her dramatic account of almost drowning when trapped in a cave by the tide near Ilfracombe, in Devon, were written long after the events in question, and carefully revised.
I found Burney a very engaging companion, and it was wonderful to follow the whole long trajectory of her life through this volume (she died at the age of eighty-seven in 1840.) I liked her wit, her vitality, her resilience; and her candor (one of her earliest set-pieces is a merciless account of the appalling stage fright she suffered during an amateur dramatic performance.) I was also quite taken by her loyalty and warmth, and her capacity for love and friendship. Her late marriage to the French exile Alexandre d’Arblay (they were in their forties when they married) seems to have been a real and passionate union of minds. I found her account of his death a very moving piece of writing.
A few caveats. Like Jane Austen (never mentioned here, although I’d have given quite a lot to know what Burney thought of her novels), Frances Burney is conservative in her politics. She abhors the French revolution, and has an absolute reverence for monarchy (seemingly undimmed by the George III chasing her round the garden incident.) Although she is smitten with Wilberforce personally when she meets him, there’s no mention here of abolitionism, the great radical cause of the day. The closest she comes, when her husband comes close to being drafted into the French force being sent to quell the slave rebellion in Haiti, is a sense of dread at the idea of him having to “combat with a ferocious set of irritated, and probably [sic] ill used Africans.”
Burney also comes off badly in her dealings with her close friend (and fellow diarist) Hester Thrale, who is guilty of the shocking and reprehensible crime of choosing to marry her daughter’s Italian music teacher, after losing her first, far more “respectable” husband. Quelle horreur! Perhaps the one mitigating circumstance is that Johnson’s reaction is still more extreme than Burney’s: “She has disgraced herself, disgraced her friends, disgraced her sex, and disgraced all the expectations of mankind.”
To end on a happier note, here are a few quotes, to give a sense of the range and feel of the book. Here’s one from a very interesting early episode in which Burney fights off an eligible suitor she feels completely indifferent to:
I felt, too, that I had no argumentative objections to make to Mr Barlow, his Character, Disposition—situation—I knew nothing against—but O!—I felt he was no companion for my Heart!—I wept like an infant when alone—Eat nothing—seemed as if already married.
Here’s a character portrait of an early acquaintance:
The Young Lady, Miss Lewis, is a Daughter of the Dean of Ossory; she is very handsome; and mighty gay and giddy, half tonish and half hoydenish—and every other word she utters is ‘horrible!’
Here’s the socially shy Burney coping with an unhinged fan of her first novel, Evelina, who keeps embarrassing her in public by imitating characters from it:
Mrs Cholmondeley hunted me quite round the card table, from Chair to Chair, repeating various speeches of Madame Duval, and when, at last, I got behind a sofa, out of her reach, she called out aloud, ‘Polly! — Polly! Only think! Miss has danced with a Lord!’
Here is Johnson, urging Burney to establish her position as one of the leading wits of London society, by taking on the famous literary patron Elizabeth Montagu:
“Down with her, Burney!—down with her!—spare her not! Attack her, fight her, and down with her at once!—You are a rising Wit,—she is at the Top,—and when I was beginning the World, and was nothing and nobody, the Joy of my Life was to fire at all the established Wits.”
At the other end of the spectrum, here’s the preamble to the dreadful mastectomy scene, conducted by a group of doctors she describes as “7 men in black:”
M. Duval placed me on the Mattrass, and spread a cambric handkerchief upon my face. It was transparent, however, and I saw through it, that the bed stead was instantly surrounded by the 7 men and my nurse. Bright through the cambric, I saw the glitter of polished steel—I closed my eyes.
Read on if you dare ...
Except that this is true! Burney really was an acquaintance or an intimate of Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, William Wilberforce—not to mention Germaine de Staël, Talleyrand, Sheridan, the entire British royal family. She can’t even stop off overnight at an inn on the way to Bath without discovering a ten-year-old Thomas Lawrence as the innkeeper’s son. Burney was an eye witness at the trial of Warren Hastings; George III chased her round a garden during his first bout of madness; Madame David showed her round her husband’s studio, keenly observing this English expat’s reactions to two portraits of Napoleon; she attended the famous ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo (Thackeray used her as a source for his episode in Vanity Fair.)
All this would be interesting enough anyway, even if narrated by someone far more plodding, but the quality of Burney’s writing exalts it. She has the eye of the novelist she was, and the ear of the comic dramatist she surely should have been (Johnson and Sheridan urged her on, but her revered father, the music historian Charles Burney, felt this would be too racy a literary path for a young lady to pursue.) Burney was clearly writing for posterity. Some of her longer, set-piece letters, such as her astonishingly graphic and almost unreadable description of a mastectomy she went through without anesthetic in Paris, or her dramatic account of almost drowning when trapped in a cave by the tide near Ilfracombe, in Devon, were written long after the events in question, and carefully revised.
I found Burney a very engaging companion, and it was wonderful to follow the whole long trajectory of her life through this volume (she died at the age of eighty-seven in 1840.) I liked her wit, her vitality, her resilience; and her candor (one of her earliest set-pieces is a merciless account of the appalling stage fright she suffered during an amateur dramatic performance.) I was also quite taken by her loyalty and warmth, and her capacity for love and friendship. Her late marriage to the French exile Alexandre d’Arblay (they were in their forties when they married) seems to have been a real and passionate union of minds. I found her account of his death a very moving piece of writing.
A few caveats. Like Jane Austen (never mentioned here, although I’d have given quite a lot to know what Burney thought of her novels), Frances Burney is conservative in her politics. She abhors the French revolution, and has an absolute reverence for monarchy (seemingly undimmed by the George III chasing her round the garden incident.) Although she is smitten with Wilberforce personally when she meets him, there’s no mention here of abolitionism, the great radical cause of the day. The closest she comes, when her husband comes close to being drafted into the French force being sent to quell the slave rebellion in Haiti, is a sense of dread at the idea of him having to “combat with a ferocious set of irritated, and probably [sic] ill used Africans.”
Burney also comes off badly in her dealings with her close friend (and fellow diarist) Hester Thrale, who is guilty of the shocking and reprehensible crime of choosing to marry her daughter’s Italian music teacher, after losing her first, far more “respectable” husband. Quelle horreur! Perhaps the one mitigating circumstance is that Johnson’s reaction is still more extreme than Burney’s: “She has disgraced herself, disgraced her friends, disgraced her sex, and disgraced all the expectations of mankind.”
To end on a happier note, here are a few quotes, to give a sense of the range and feel of the book. Here’s one from a very interesting early episode in which Burney fights off an eligible suitor she feels completely indifferent to:
I felt, too, that I had no argumentative objections to make to Mr Barlow, his Character, Disposition—situation—I knew nothing against—but O!—I felt he was no companion for my Heart!—I wept like an infant when alone—Eat nothing—seemed as if already married.
Here’s a character portrait of an early acquaintance:
The Young Lady, Miss Lewis, is a Daughter of the Dean of Ossory; she is very handsome; and mighty gay and giddy, half tonish and half hoydenish—and every other word she utters is ‘horrible!’
Here’s the socially shy Burney coping with an unhinged fan of her first novel, Evelina, who keeps embarrassing her in public by imitating characters from it:
Mrs Cholmondeley hunted me quite round the card table, from Chair to Chair, repeating various speeches of Madame Duval, and when, at last, I got behind a sofa, out of her reach, she called out aloud, ‘Polly! — Polly! Only think! Miss has danced with a Lord!’
Here is Johnson, urging Burney to establish her position as one of the leading wits of London society, by taking on the famous literary patron Elizabeth Montagu:
“Down with her, Burney!—down with her!—spare her not! Attack her, fight her, and down with her at once!—You are a rising Wit,—she is at the Top,—and when I was beginning the World, and was nothing and nobody, the Joy of my Life was to fire at all the established Wits.”
At the other end of the spectrum, here’s the preamble to the dreadful mastectomy scene, conducted by a group of doctors she describes as “7 men in black:”
M. Duval placed me on the Mattrass, and spread a cambric handkerchief upon my face. It was transparent, however, and I saw through it, that the bed stead was instantly surrounded by the 7 men and my nurse. Bright through the cambric, I saw the glitter of polished steel—I closed my eyes.
Read on if you dare ...
May 24, 2017
The early part of the book was captivating. Fanny was very interesting and had a good sense of humor. I liked her joking descriptions of all the rules to follow when you meet royalty. I never thought about passing gas in front of a king! Reading her journal and letters to her friends and family gives insight into the person she was and the times she lived in. She seems like a very special person, open minded and kind hearted. Her life was exciting and she made the most of it.
However, the problem for me was about 3/4 into the book, the letters selected gave less info, and the footnotes did not step in to clear things up. In the first part of the book, the footnotes were great. They give lots of interesting info on the people she talks about. For example she talked about meeting a little kid once, at an inn where they were staying, and the footnotes told who he grew up to be and when and how he died. That makes what Fanny says even more interesting, but also you truly feel how short life is. Later though, it wasn't like that. It seems like the editor lost commitment. When Fanny's son is having so many problems at Cambridge, we are not told what the problems are! Bad grades? Goofing off? Getting teased? Bad health? What?! Another example is when she met the king of France, Louis VIII I think he was, at a party, but never describes him. She was formally introduced to him, but never mentions him? Why not? She described everyone else she ever met. That last 3/4 of the book was weak on details such as these. It still had some good parts, but the footnotes were very weak. This book could have been five stars, but the last bit just gets too dry. Someone should re edit this book, with better footnotes and chose some better letters for the last 1/4 of the book.
However, the problem for me was about 3/4 into the book, the letters selected gave less info, and the footnotes did not step in to clear things up. In the first part of the book, the footnotes were great. They give lots of interesting info on the people she talks about. For example she talked about meeting a little kid once, at an inn where they were staying, and the footnotes told who he grew up to be and when and how he died. That makes what Fanny says even more interesting, but also you truly feel how short life is. Later though, it wasn't like that. It seems like the editor lost commitment. When Fanny's son is having so many problems at Cambridge, we are not told what the problems are! Bad grades? Goofing off? Getting teased? Bad health? What?! Another example is when she met the king of France, Louis VIII I think he was, at a party, but never describes him. She was formally introduced to him, but never mentions him? Why not? She described everyone else she ever met. That last 3/4 of the book was weak on details such as these. It still had some good parts, but the footnotes were very weak. This book could have been five stars, but the last bit just gets too dry. Someone should re edit this book, with better footnotes and chose some better letters for the last 1/4 of the book.
January 16, 2019
This is one of those books I was excited to get but half-expected to leave on my shelf. It wasn’t until I had to read it for the Dr Johnson’s House Reading Circle that I actually picked it up and read it. I was expecting to find Frances Burney to be affected and a little irritating, having read a biography of her and come across in many places since.
I was worried at first. Frances is young, names her journal ‘nobody’ as she has nobody to tell her secrets. She complains about being dragged to meet boring strangers (which was worse with her crippling shyness.) There’s another entry where she talks about how she wants to love without being loved back. It’s all very gauche.
How surprised was I, that I was utterly on her side in a few pages.
Things pick up as she starts writing ‘Evelina’. The novel was written in secret as she was terrified of being exposed as a boastful ‘scribbler’ and paranoid about her father’s disapproval. She claimed she had it published on a whim (something I don’t believe for a second) but she was genuinely surprised when it became the talk of the literary world. Her father was a music historian who was a member of The Club, a group of polymaths surrounding Samuel Johnson and she was often with him as his secretary. She thrilled at hearing these huge names talking about her little book, though mortified when it was eventually pinned to her.
From then on she moved in those circles in her own right, becoming a virtual pet to Hester Thrale. The journals/letters are full of little pen portraits of great eighteenth century figures. Two of my favourites were poor, pathetic Kit Smart after being released from the madhouse, Davey Garrick sweeping into the house and charming the pants off everyone. Some of these are wonderfully niche, her brother travelled Cook’s last two voyages and so she became loose friends with Omai, a traveller from Tahiti.
So many of these sketches are vivd and wonderful because she has an almost pitch-perfect ear for how people spoke. While her visual and behavioural descriptions of people follow some pretty ordinary 18th century phrasings and forms, her ability to create a real voice is astounding. Whether it is King George III’s little tag phrases (“what, what”), Paoli’s peculiar manipulation of English (“I was a baby to him”) or an Irish peer’s odd, scattered chat (“boys here, boys there, boys all over”). She manages to bring the people into the room. Interestingly, she also has Johnson starting many of his utterances with a barked ‘sir’, so it wasn’t just Boswell’s affectation. (Incidentally, she avoids Boswell because of his own listening ear and ready notebook).
Following the success of ‘Evelina’ she was invited into the court of Queen Caroline. She was there for five years and appeared to have hated most of it. For someone who was overly (even sensitively) keen on propriety, she has an inner streak of independence that won’t be contained by court life. As usual, her snippets of court personalities are full of vigour- George III is full of energy and life, perhaps even more so during one his ‘mad’ periods where he chases her around the gardens of Windsor.
Released from court, she finished the book ‘Cecilia’. I loved hearing her friends discussing it, how one managed to read it four times whilst Sir Joshua Reynold’s was still on the first volume. The best part was when she met Mrs Delaney and the Duchess of Portland. They gossip about the characters as if they are friends and (thrillingly for me) describe Richardson’s ‘Clarissa’ as long and boring.
Then she fell in love with Alexandre D’Arblay, a penniless emigre from the French Revolution. Using her court pension and the sales of her third novel, ‘Camilla’, she lived in a little cottage where she had a son. In the lull between Anglo-French wars, the three of them went to visit family in France and were subsequently trapped in Napoleon’s France for ten years. She suffered a mastectomy without anaesthesia, reported on the effect of Waterloo from Brussels and moved back to England.
As she grew older she lost family members (including her father, husband and son), sorted through her father’s next to useless memoirs, wrote another novel and got trapped in a cave filling with sea-water. Then she died, aged 87.
As keenly as she views other people, she seems a little oblivious about herself. From youth to old age, she is always painting herself as a trembling, shy, physcially delicate person. This is the same woman who wrote sharp depictions of all those around her, survived a hideously painful operation and the rigours of the Napoleonic wars as a British woman in France. She almost lived to her nineties - she was no delicate flower, she had a will of steel. I wish she could see herself with the same clarity she saw everyone else.
One of the strangest things about reading Frances Burney’s journals and private letters is knowing how mortified she would be that I was reading them.
This is a book I would highly recommend, there are so many small and incidental details that were fascinating. We get to really hear Johnson at his most frighteningly vitriolic and his most tender. We are trapped in the stuffy court where she spends the long evenings looking at coffee because she doesn’t like to drink it. We get gossip about people with big noses, Corsican generals meeting Irish Giants and Tahitian adventurers eying up beautiful women in Hyde Park… and so much more.
I was worried at first. Frances is young, names her journal ‘nobody’ as she has nobody to tell her secrets. She complains about being dragged to meet boring strangers (which was worse with her crippling shyness.) There’s another entry where she talks about how she wants to love without being loved back. It’s all very gauche.
How surprised was I, that I was utterly on her side in a few pages.
Things pick up as she starts writing ‘Evelina’. The novel was written in secret as she was terrified of being exposed as a boastful ‘scribbler’ and paranoid about her father’s disapproval. She claimed she had it published on a whim (something I don’t believe for a second) but she was genuinely surprised when it became the talk of the literary world. Her father was a music historian who was a member of The Club, a group of polymaths surrounding Samuel Johnson and she was often with him as his secretary. She thrilled at hearing these huge names talking about her little book, though mortified when it was eventually pinned to her.
From then on she moved in those circles in her own right, becoming a virtual pet to Hester Thrale. The journals/letters are full of little pen portraits of great eighteenth century figures. Two of my favourites were poor, pathetic Kit Smart after being released from the madhouse, Davey Garrick sweeping into the house and charming the pants off everyone. Some of these are wonderfully niche, her brother travelled Cook’s last two voyages and so she became loose friends with Omai, a traveller from Tahiti.
So many of these sketches are vivd and wonderful because she has an almost pitch-perfect ear for how people spoke. While her visual and behavioural descriptions of people follow some pretty ordinary 18th century phrasings and forms, her ability to create a real voice is astounding. Whether it is King George III’s little tag phrases (“what, what”), Paoli’s peculiar manipulation of English (“I was a baby to him”) or an Irish peer’s odd, scattered chat (“boys here, boys there, boys all over”). She manages to bring the people into the room. Interestingly, she also has Johnson starting many of his utterances with a barked ‘sir’, so it wasn’t just Boswell’s affectation. (Incidentally, she avoids Boswell because of his own listening ear and ready notebook).
Following the success of ‘Evelina’ she was invited into the court of Queen Caroline. She was there for five years and appeared to have hated most of it. For someone who was overly (even sensitively) keen on propriety, she has an inner streak of independence that won’t be contained by court life. As usual, her snippets of court personalities are full of vigour- George III is full of energy and life, perhaps even more so during one his ‘mad’ periods where he chases her around the gardens of Windsor.
Released from court, she finished the book ‘Cecilia’. I loved hearing her friends discussing it, how one managed to read it four times whilst Sir Joshua Reynold’s was still on the first volume. The best part was when she met Mrs Delaney and the Duchess of Portland. They gossip about the characters as if they are friends and (thrillingly for me) describe Richardson’s ‘Clarissa’ as long and boring.
Then she fell in love with Alexandre D’Arblay, a penniless emigre from the French Revolution. Using her court pension and the sales of her third novel, ‘Camilla’, she lived in a little cottage where she had a son. In the lull between Anglo-French wars, the three of them went to visit family in France and were subsequently trapped in Napoleon’s France for ten years. She suffered a mastectomy without anaesthesia, reported on the effect of Waterloo from Brussels and moved back to England.
As she grew older she lost family members (including her father, husband and son), sorted through her father’s next to useless memoirs, wrote another novel and got trapped in a cave filling with sea-water. Then she died, aged 87.
As keenly as she views other people, she seems a little oblivious about herself. From youth to old age, she is always painting herself as a trembling, shy, physcially delicate person. This is the same woman who wrote sharp depictions of all those around her, survived a hideously painful operation and the rigours of the Napoleonic wars as a British woman in France. She almost lived to her nineties - she was no delicate flower, she had a will of steel. I wish she could see herself with the same clarity she saw everyone else.
One of the strangest things about reading Frances Burney’s journals and private letters is knowing how mortified she would be that I was reading them.
This is a book I would highly recommend, there are so many small and incidental details that were fascinating. We get to really hear Johnson at his most frighteningly vitriolic and his most tender. We are trapped in the stuffy court where she spends the long evenings looking at coffee because she doesn’t like to drink it. We get gossip about people with big noses, Corsican generals meeting Irish Giants and Tahitian adventurers eying up beautiful women in Hyde Park… and so much more.
August 14, 2024
I enjoyed Fanny’s sense of humor and her sassy independence she had when she was younger. I had begun reading her first novel Evelina but stopped once this came from library and I think it helped me appreciate her writing and the time period better. Fanny Burney was the Godmother for the 19th century female novelists such as Austen and the Brontes; an interesting character who paved a way for many who followed after her.
February 21, 2022
Brilliant collection of journals and letters. Absolutely eye popping stuff
She mixes with Samuel Johnson , Sheridan , George 3rd and the royal family - when she spends 5 years as a courtier - she then married a French man and we get insight into how life in France in the aftermath of the Revolution .
She is even stationed in Belgium at the time of the battle of Waterloo - and witnesses the masses of injured soldiers as they return wounded and bedraggled from the conflict.
But the most eye popping is when taking a stroll in yhe gardens of Kew Palace in 1785 ish she espies yhe king who is having his first fit of madness . He spots her and runs after her shouting her to stop. She has been told to flee his presence. Eventually he reaches her and expecting his rebuke : but he reaches forward and places both hands on her shoulders to give her a hug
I love George 3rd - as did Fanny Burney.
Brilliant brilliant vision of our former king and of the times and some of the principal personalities of history of later 1700s early 1800s
She mixes with Samuel Johnson , Sheridan , George 3rd and the royal family - when she spends 5 years as a courtier - she then married a French man and we get insight into how life in France in the aftermath of the Revolution .
She is even stationed in Belgium at the time of the battle of Waterloo - and witnesses the masses of injured soldiers as they return wounded and bedraggled from the conflict.
But the most eye popping is when taking a stroll in yhe gardens of Kew Palace in 1785 ish she espies yhe king who is having his first fit of madness . He spots her and runs after her shouting her to stop. She has been told to flee his presence. Eventually he reaches her and expecting his rebuke : but he reaches forward and places both hands on her shoulders to give her a hug
I love George 3rd - as did Fanny Burney.
Brilliant brilliant vision of our former king and of the times and some of the principal personalities of history of later 1700s early 1800s
Want to read
August 27, 2022When her famous novel was published (January, 1778) she was twenty-five, and was so fearful lest it displease her father that she concealed her authorship. Evelina, or A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, made a stir.
(Rousseau and Revolution (Will;Ariel Durant), on page 1343, location 20589-20591, Sunday, 10 July 2022 12:26:34)
That once famous novel is dead, but the diary that Fanny kept is still a living part of English literature and history, for it offers a near view of celebrities from Johnson and George III to Herschel and Napoleon.
(Rousseau and Revolution (Will;Ariel Durant), on page 1344, location 20599-20601, Sunday, 10 July 2022 12:29:30)
(Rousseau and Revolution (Will;Ariel Durant), on page 1343, location 20589-20591, Sunday, 10 July 2022 12:26:34)
That once famous novel is dead, but the diary that Fanny kept is still a living part of English literature and history, for it offers a near view of celebrities from Johnson and George III to Herschel and Napoleon.
(Rousseau and Revolution (Will;Ariel Durant), on page 1344, location 20599-20601, Sunday, 10 July 2022 12:29:30)
July 4, 2025
This book was so entertaining, so informative. Francis Burney’s life was some how more interesting than her books. Thank you to the book Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, I discovered this gem of a book. I will reread it many times in the future.
July 31, 2020
Read her Novels rather.
October 16, 2022
Interesting read. Nor am I afraid to attack famous writers like Samuel Johnson did. He sounds like a happy guy. Her entry on mastectomy is moving and real and chilling for me to read.
December 24, 2018
Other than the eighteenth century language, the letters are informative and often entertaining.
My main beef is that Penguin Books chose to save some paper and perhaps tress by printing this volume with a point size of about seven or eight. That shortens the work in pages, but lengthens the time needed to discern what the text contains, especially with the many French phrases in italics and the even tinier footnotes. It also appears as if Penguin purposely used ink only slightly grayer than the paper on which it's printed. And I don't think it was just my copy. As a result, it could only be read at a rate of about twenty pages a day. Frances Burney had a remarkable life, but I wouldn't try to get through it with her again for money. She had her own problems with publishers and would probably sympathize.
My main beef is that Penguin Books chose to save some paper and perhaps tress by printing this volume with a point size of about seven or eight. That shortens the work in pages, but lengthens the time needed to discern what the text contains, especially with the many French phrases in italics and the even tinier footnotes. It also appears as if Penguin purposely used ink only slightly grayer than the paper on which it's printed. And I don't think it was just my copy. As a result, it could only be read at a rate of about twenty pages a day. Frances Burney had a remarkable life, but I wouldn't try to get through it with her again for money. She had her own problems with publishers and would probably sympathize.
March 4, 2021
This isn’t, as the title implies, extracts of Madame d’Arblay’s (aka Frances Burney) diary, coupled with selections of her letters.
Instead, it’s something of a mixed bag, written by another author. We get an overview of Burney’s life, plus some opinions of her novels and writing style. None of her letters are featured.
Not what I was expecting, but the book isn’t a bad read.
Instead, it’s something of a mixed bag, written by another author. We get an overview of Burney’s life, plus some opinions of her novels and writing style. None of her letters are featured.
Not what I was expecting, but the book isn’t a bad read.
January 5, 2008
I read this during my research for my thesis. Burney was a fascinating and fiery 18th century British woman. She married a Frenchman and was scorned for it and then followed him to almost the death. She also battled breast cancer and won.
August 15, 2014
While some of the early parts of this ook dragged, overall it was enjoyable and thought-provoking reading. the young Frances Burney is nearly insufferably modest, but it was kind of neat to see her mature through her own writing.
Want to read
July 5, 2011Oh, helz, yeah! A present from Nathaniel! He's the best!
February 25, 2014
An amazing account of an amazing life of one amazing woman. That is all that need be said.
July 20, 2016
Really loved her details and I could relate to her because of them. We think very similarly.
May 2, 2020
A classic, entirely deserving.
At times this cries for more notes, more context, more commentaries, but ok.
At times this cries for more notes, more context, more commentaries, but ok.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews