Frances Burney

Daughter of famed Music Historian, Charles Burney, Frances Burney became a literary sensation soon after she released her first book, Evelina, in 1778. Although Evelina was first published anonymously, Miss Burney’s identity as the author was soon discovered, coming as a surprise even to her father. She became second keeper of the robes for Queen Charlotte starting in 1786, and then in 1793, met and married the French émigré, General D’Arblay. Frances chronicled her long life in her Journals and Letters, which have been preserved and reprinted various times (recently, by McGill-Queen’s University Press). Frances Burney’s novels were known and admired by Jane Austen, Napoleon and Edmund Burke alike. Frances Burney was born in Norfolk, England, in 1752 and died in London in 1840.