The Diary of Fanny Burney

by Frances Burney, Lewis Gibbs (Editor)

1972 Dutton Paperback.

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Biography, Memoir, Diary

415 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

Also known as Fanny Burney and, after her marriage, as Madame d’Arblay. Frances Burney was a novelist, diarist and playwright. In total, she wrote four novels, eight plays, one biography and twenty volumes of journals and letters.

Reviews

[Elisabeth]

This is the 1961 Folio Society edition. Very interesting in parts - though better read in the morning than at night. Makes me want to get the full journals.

[Karen-Leigh]

Thoroughly enjoyed this insight into George III and his family as seen by a bright, engaging mind.

[Helen]

Revisited this after many years. A mix of diary and letters, in sections covering different periods - the earlier ones including the publication of "Evelina" which was a secret for a while. The five years spent as assistant robe mistress to the Queen (1786-1791) are interesting and vivid, including much about daily court life and in particular the famous first episode of the illness of the King. Fanny Burney went on to have an interesting time after leaving the court, as the wife of a Frenchman in exile and later in France. (This edition does not contain the famous passage in which she describes undergoing a mastectomy without anaesthetic).