Additional Journals and Letters of Frances Burney

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 as The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (5 volumes., Oxford: Clarendon; Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's UniversityPress, 1988-2012). 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 (6 volumes, in progress, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011-), while the later journals and letters have been edited by JoyceHemlow and others as The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame d'Arblay), 1791-1840 (12 volumes, Oxford: Clarendon, 1972-84). 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 1768-1783 and the The Court Journals and Letters of Frances Burney, whichcovers the period 1786-1791. 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 thefinal 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 TwickenhamMeadows, 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 2 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.

This volume is fascinating from its very first letter, one to Frances's sister Susanna talking about visiting Samuel Johnson's sickbed, to the last, written on the verge of her taking her position at Court, talking about Mary Delaney and her role in the Court appointment. This volume will be more than welcome to all Burney scholars, to be sure, but it will also be embraced by anyone interested in the details of later eighteenth-century culture., This rich, rewarding volume will be a significant resource for scholars of the late-Georgian period.

Stewart Cooke teaches English and American Literature at Dawson College in Montreal and is the Associate Director of the Burney Centre at McGill University and managing editor of the Burney Journal. He is the co-editor of The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Volume III (1995) and Volume V (2012); the associate editor of The Collected Plays of Frances Burney, Volume II (1995); and the editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Evelina (1997). He is currentlyediting Volume III of the Letters of Charles Burney, which covers the period1794-1800.