Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World

Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World | Fanny Burney Biography

Fanny Burney was born on June 13, 1752, in King’s Lyn, Norfolk, England. She was the daughter of Esther Sleepe and Charles Burney, who held a doctorate in music history. Her biographers claim that she was a very intelligent young girl who began writing odes, plays, songs, and farces at a very early age. Most of these early works were lost when Burney decided, as a teenager, to burn them. However she began to keep a diary around the age of fifteen, in which she recorded both typical, personal concerns of a young girl as well as anecdotes about her unusual experiences in court from the reign of George III to the beginning of the Victorian Age. Some of the incidents that Burney recorded and published in her The Early Diary of Frances Burney 1768–1778, were referred to for the 1994 movie The Madness of King George. Burney had served as lady-in-waiting to the king’s wife, Queen Charlotte.

Fanny Burney
Fanny Burney

At the age of twenty-six Burney published her first novel, Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, anonymously in 1778. Although her father disapproved of her attempting to be published, he reconciled with his daughter after the novel became a huge success. From her popularity, she gained access to literary circles, including acquaintance with noted authors Samuel Johnson and Richard Sheridan. In 1782, Burney’s second novel, Cecilia; or, Memoirs of an Heiress, increased her fame. Author Jane Austen is said to have studied Burney’s works, which became such a strong influence on her writing that literary critics contend that Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has some very noticeable similarities to Burney’s style of writing. The title of Austen’s book is actually taken from the last chapter of Burney’s Cecilia; or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Historians have also recorded that Napoleon read Burney’s books and sent his compliments through Burney’s husband, General Alexandre d’Arblay, whom Burney married in 1793.

Burney’s third novel, Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth, was published in 1796 and it also enjoyed incredible success. A few years after this publication, General d’Arblay moved his family back to his homeland of France in an attempt to regain property he had abandoned there years before. The family remained in France for ten years, during which time Burney had to have an operation to remove a cancerous breast, which she suffered without anesthesia. She chronicled this experience in her diary, and for some people, this became her most famous writing. Burney’s last novel, The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties, was published in 1814 after she had moved back to England.

Although Burney wrote several plays, none of them were produced during her lifetime. Writing novels was at first considered a dishonorable occupation for women. Burney’s success helped to change the attitude of most people in this respect However, the theater remained, according to Kate Chisholm, writing for the Guardian, “an unsuitable occupation for ladies of a certain class.” Not until 1993 did one of Burney’s plays reach the stage. Since then Burney’s material has been rejuvenated, culminating in not only having her plays produced but having a play written about her. In June 2002, in Westminister Abbey, on the 250th anniversary of her birth, Burney was commemorated in Poets’ Corner, joining Jane Austen George Eliot and the Brontë sisters as the only women so honored.

Burney enjoyed a long life, almost doubling the average life span of her contemporaries. She died at the age of eighty-eight in 1840.

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