Author Description

This is the first of two volumes of The Additional Letters and Journals of Frances Burney. Together, the volumes will present material not included in the existing series of Burney's journals and letters. Frances Burney's earlier journals and letters have been edited by Lars E. Troide, Stewart Cooke, and Betty Rizzo in five volumes as The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney. The court journals and letters are being edited by Peter Sabor, Stewart Cooke, Lorna Clark, Geoffrey Sill, and Nancy Johnson as The Court Journals and Letters of Frances Burney in six volumes, while the later journals and letters have been edited by Joyce Hemlow and others as The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame d'Arblay), 1791-1840 in 12 volumes. Beginning with a letter to Burney's sister Susanna, dated 6-8 January 1784, and ending with a letter to Mary Hamilton Dickinson, dated 11 July 1786, this volume closes the gap between the The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, which covers the period 1768 to 1783, and the The Court Journals and Letters of Frances Burney, which covers the period 1786 to 1791.Written at the height of Burney's fame as a novelist, the journals and letters included in this volume detail the loss of her friendship with Hester Thrale upon the latter's marriage to Gabriel Piozzi and the growth of her friendship with William and Frederica Lock, who provide her with physical and emotional refuge at Norbury Park, and with Mary Delany, who connects her with eventual Royal privilege and a position as Keeper of the Robes. This volume also includes Burney's unique record of the final days of Samuel Johnson's life and an appreciation of his life and work; extended commentary, appreciative but often comic, on Burney's meetings with King George III and Queen Charlotte; and also revealing insight into the ambiguous nature of her relationship with the Cambridges of Twickenham Meadows, visits to whom offered alternating elements of happiness and misery. Much of the text is dedicated to Burney's frustrating relationship with George Cambridge, a Lord Orville with feet of clay.Volume II will consist of all the letters, and journal and diary entries, written between 1791 and 1840 that were not included in the series of later journals, thus completing the modern editing of Burney's surviving journals and letters from 1768 until her death in 1840.