Fanny Burney by Claire Harman

Fanny Burney by Claire Harman

‘Dazzling…full of special delights. Harman excels in the vivid presentation of scenes, the selection of detail…[a] marvellous and beautifully written book.’ Elspeth Barker, Independent on Sunday At the age of fifteen, Fanny Burney made a bonfire of all her works, ‘with the sincere intention to extinguish for ever in their ashes her scribbling propensity’. She was anxious that she might turn into an author, a fate incompatible – for a woman – with respectability. Her hope was in vain. Not only was she to write four novels (‘Evelina’, ‘Cecilia’, ‘Camilla’ and ‘The Wanderer’), all of which are still in print, she also kept a voluminous diary for the next seventy years and was a prolific letter-writer. Daughter of the eminent music historian Dr Charles Burney; friend of Sheridan, Garrick, Burke and Johnson; second keeper of the robes to George III’s Queen Charlotte; wife to a refugee French aristocrat; detained for ten years in revolutionary France; horrified witness of the aftermath of Waterloo; victim of a mastectomy without anaesthetic…Fanny Burney’s life was as eventful as any novel.

‘A superb, highly intelligent, readable study…if a biography can claim perfect pitch, this one can’ Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

‘Excellent..unlikely to be bettered for years to come.’ Kathryn Hughes, New Statesman

‘This scholarly, judicious and entertaining book is all that a biography should be.’ Ian McIntyre, The Times

‘A great achievement.’ Andrew Marr, Observer

‘Excellent.’ Miranda Seymour, Sunday Times

‘A thoroughly entertaining as well as scholarly book.’ Allan Massie, Daily Telegraph

Claire Harman's first book, a biography of the novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner, was published by Chatto & Windus in 1989 and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for 'a book of value from a writer of growing stature'. Her second, a life of Fanny Burney (2000), published by HarperCollins, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. She has edited Warner's Collected Poems (1982) and Diaries (1994) as well as works by Robert Louis Stevenson, a new biography of whom she has just completed. Harman worked for the literary periodical PN Review in the 1980s and has taught at the universities of Manchester and Oxford. She has written for all the major British literary papers and currently teaches a course in creative writing at Columbia University's School of the Arts.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780006550365
ISBN 10	0006550363
Title	Fanny Burney
Author	Claire Harman
Condition	Unavailable
Binding type	Paperback
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers
Year published	2001-10-01
Number of pages	464
Prizes	Short-listed for Whitbread Book Awards: Biography Category 2000
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable