Frances Burney: A Literary Life (Literary Lives) ISBN-13: 9780312229818

ISBN-13: 9780312229818

Binding: Hardcover

Author: Thaddeus, J.

Details: From Kirkus Reviews A scholarly biography focusing on the literary career of the pioneering novelist (1752–1840).Thaddeus (History and Literature/Harvard) begins with an anxious moment: returning to England from France in 1812, Burney is confronted by a police officer who demands to know the significance of the myriad manuscript pages she has. (They are in fact three volumes of her novel-in-progress, The Wanderer.) But a strong and confident Burney cows the official, controlling him as easily as she manipulates her texts. There have been, asserts Thaddeus, three principal critical views of Burney: a writer who fears to do no wrong, one who represses her rage, and one who unleashes her rage. To understand her work more comprehensively, it is necessary, says Thaddeus, to employ all three. Having established this critical framework, Thaddeus proceeds through the life of protean Burney, following her from childhood in her close, artistic family to the publication of her first novel (the epistolary Evelina) to her second and even more popular novel Cecilia (with its half-mad narrator) to her dreary life as an attendant to Queen Charlotte (a position that made her so frail with misery that she nearly died), and on through her marriage, motherhood, celebrity (among her fans were Byron, Scott, and Godwin), and later works (including an ill-reviewed play, Edwy and Elgiva). Thaddeus provides an important service by summarizing and analyzing Burneys little-known works–sometimes more thoroughly than engagingly. But readers will emerge convinced of both the importance and novelty of Burneys work. Thaddeus also reveals humor and irony and pain in Burneys life (e.g., her future husband wrote a paean to the joys of masturbation, and with only a wine cordial anesthetic, she endured a brutal mastectomy). Thaddeuss meticulous research and sound argument should secure for Burney a more prominent place in the pride of literary lions. — Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Product Description Emphasizing Frances Burneys professionalism and her courage, Janice Farrar Thaddeus shows the protean writer who recognised her abilities and exercised them, always carefully shaping her career. Though now frequently depicted as retiring, even fearful, Burney forced on her reading public themes they were scarcely ready for, flamboyantly mixing genres, writing comically about intimate violence. Not content in old age to be merely a literary icon, she privately recorded with increasing clarity the moments when the world lacerates the self. Review At this date it is no small achievement to come up with new, valid, important, and definitive insights about Frances Burney, but in this fine focussed work, Thaddeus has managed it. Moreover, delightfully and gracefully written, the book is a page-turner. – Professor Betty Rizzo, City College of New York About the Author Janice Farrar Thaddeus is Senior Lecturer and Director of Studies, History and Literature, Harvard University.

Release Date: 14-07-2000

Package Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches

Languages: English

Edition: 2000

Number Of Pages: 275