Fanny Burney: A biography (Claire Harman)

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‘Dazzling…full of special delights. Harman excels in the vivid presentation of scenes, the selection of detail…[a] marvellous and beautifully written book.’ Elspeth Barker, Independent on SundayAt the age of fifteen, Fanny Burney made a bonfire of all her works, ‘with the sincere intention to extinguish for ever in their ashes her scribbling propensity’. She was anxious that she might turn into an author, a fate incompatible – for a woman – with respectability.Her hope was in vain. Not only was she to write four novels (‘Evelina’, ‘Cecilia’, ‘Camilla’ and ‘The Wanderer’), all of which are still in print, she also kept a voluminous diary for the next seventy years and was a prolific letter-writer. Daughter of the eminent music historian Dr Charles Burney; friend of Sheridan, Garrick, Burke and Johnson; second keeper of the robes to George III’s Queen Charlotte; wife to a refugee French aristocrat; detained for ten years in revolutionary France; horrified witness of the aftermath of Waterloo; victim of a mastectomy without anaesthetic…Fanny Burney’s life was as eventful as any novel.