Journals And Letters: Burney (Penguin Classics)

Description: 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. Author Biography: Frances Burney (1752-1840) established her reputation with her novel, 'Evelina' (1778). After a period in Queen Charlotte's court, she and her husband, Alexander d'Arblay, were interned by Napoleon and lived in France until 1815. Widowed in 1818, she spent the rest of her life in London. Peter Sabor is Professor of English at Laval University, Quebec. Lars E Troide is Professor of English and Director of the Burney Papers Project at McGill University, Montreal.