Volume IV of The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, covering the years 1780-1781, will be of particular interest to students of Burney as it marks the young author's introduction into the world following the astonishing success of her novel Evelina (1778) and includes her visits to Streatham and her encounters with Hester and Henry Thrale and Dr Johnson. It was an exciting period in her life, which she managed to enjoy despite struggling to repeat her first success while avoiding the often unwelcome attention it brought. But it was also a difficult period in her family life as she dealt with jealous interference by her stepmother, the courtship of her sister Susan by a man she considered untrustworthy, and the misbehaviour of her brothers. Burney's enthusiasm makes the most of her experiences and she describes characters and scenes with all the genius displayed in her novels. Her descriptions contain the four great attributes that distinguish her novels: brilliant handling of detail, total and full recall of conversations characteristic of the speaker, sensibility and empathy for others, and great relish for the ridiculous wherever it occurred.

At the beginning of 1778 twenty-five-year-old Fanny Burney was an unknown. By year's end, however, she had emerged as the author of Evelina, or, A Young Lady's Entrance into the World, a universally acclaimed novel which admirers ranked with the works of Fielding and Richardson. This third of twelve projected volumes of a critical edition of Burney's journals and letters covers the period from January 1778 to December 1779. It reveals Burney's striking transformation to a "celebrity" as she is welcomed into London's literary society, and her mixed delight and terror at this reception. As Burney becomes a regular at the Streatham Park home of Henry and Hester Thrale, she is befriended by another regular visitor, Samuel Johnson, and given the opportunity to observe and record the playful and affectionate side of Johnson's character, a side largely missed by Boswell. Burney is urged by the Streathamites to write a comedy for the London stage and responds with "The Witlings," a satiric portrait of London's bluestockings. Alarmed by the prospect of disapproval from the powerful bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu, Burney's father and her friend Samuel Crisp dissuade her from releasing the piece. Her disappointment is eased by the whirling social life that she enjoys in the company of the Thrales at Streatham and at Brighton, on which she comments with characteristic perception and humour. Fanny Burney's journals and letters are an invaluable source for the social and literary history of her time, and are justly regarded as literature in their own right. All volumes in this series will be of specific interest to scholars in literary criticism, feminist studies, and music and social history.

Novelist and playwright Frances (Fanny) Burney, 1752-1840, was also a prolific writer of journals and letters, beginning with the diary she started at fifteen and continuing until the end of her eventful life. From her youth in London high society to a period in the court of Queen Charlotte and her years interned in France with her husband Alexandre d'Arblay during the Napoleonic Wars, she captured the changing times around her, creating brilliantly comic and candid portraits of those she encountered - including the 'mad' King George, Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick and a charismatic Napoleon Bonaparte. She also describes, in her most moving piece, undergoing a mastectomy at fifty-nine without anaesthetic. Whether a carefree young girl or a mature woman, Fanny Burney's forthright, intimate and wickedly perceptive voice brings her world powerfully to life.

First published in 1796, Camilla, Fanny Burney's third novel, proved to be an enormous popular success. It deals with the matrimonial concerns of a group of young people-Camilla Tyrold and her sisters, the daughters of a country parson, and their cousin Indiana Lynmere-and, in particular, with the love affair between Camilla herself and her eligible suitor, Edgar Mandlebert.

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Frances Burney (1752–1840) was the most successful female novelist of the eighteenth century. Her first novel Evelina was a publishing sensation; her follow-up novels Cecilia and Camilla were regarded as among the best fiction of the time and were much admired by Jane Austen. Burney's life was equally remarkable: a protegee of Samuel Johnson, lady-in-waiting at the court of George III, later wife of an emigre aristocrat and stranded in France during the Napoleonic Wars, she lived on into the reign of Queen Victoria. Her journals and letters are now widely read as a rich source of information about the Court, social conditions and cultural changes over her long lifetime. This Companion is the first volume to cover all her works, including her novels, plays, journals and letters, in a comprehensive and accessible way. It also includes discussion of her critical reputation, and a guide to further reading.

The years 1774-77 saw Fanny Burney's increasing occupation with Evelina, which she finally completed and presented to the publisher Thomas Lowndes. Like her novel, the journals and letters of this period reveal her artistic powers, as she continues to sketch characters with economy and precision and create convincing narratives out of the events of her life. Among the more memorable figures she meets at her father's London house are the "noble savage" Omai, the first Tahitian brought back to England; the famed explorer James "Abyssinian" Bruce, who returned from Africa with tales of natives who ate raw flesh; and Prince Aleksei Orlov of Russia, who had Czar Peter III murdered in order to permit Peter's wife, Catherine "the Great," to ascend the throne. Other notable figures include Dr Samuel Johnson and the great singer Lucrezia Agujari, admired by Mozart. Also in these pages, the usually diffident Miss Burney takes charge of her destiny by rebuffing her suitor Thomas Barlow, who has wealth, education, good looks, and the vehement approval of most of her family, but whom she finds a total bore. The journals and letters of Fanny Burney are an invaluable source for anyone interested in the social and literary history of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England. Lars Troide has supported the texts with thorough and detailed annotations.