Lorna J. Clark – författare

This second volume of the letters of Dr Charles Burney follows directly from the first, published in 1991, and contains roughly two hundred letters written between 1785 and 1793. In these years, Burney consolidated his reputation as a musicologist, publishing his account of the Commemoration of Handel (1785) and completing A General History of Music (1789). Continuing to teach, he had a busy schedule, filled with dinners, assemblies, and concerts. During these years, Burney moved from St Martin's Street to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where he held the post of organist. He remained active in musical circles, helping to promote foreign musicians and young performers. He welcomed Josef Haydn to London in 1791. As a proprietor of the Pantheon, which burned down in 1792, Burney noted competing efforts to establish a new opera house. He helped organize the musical band taken on Lord Macartney's embassy to China in 1792. Seeking materials for his research, Burney borrowed manuscripts from George III and corresponded with colleagues in England and abroad. Burney also discussed literary subjects and contributed to the Monthly Review. A friend of Horace Walpole, he socialized with the Bluestockings. He was a frequent attender at the Literary Club and supplied Boswell with anecdotes of Johnson. Burney writes movingly of the passing of the artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds.Having married twice, Burney kept in touch with a large family and visited his daughters in Mickleham, Surrey, and Aylmer, Norfolk. He tried to help his son, Charles Burney Jr, restore his reputation (after the disgrace of expulsion from Cambridge) and supported his daughter, Frances, on accepting--and then resigning from--a position in the Queen's Household. Initially alarmed when she married a penniless French émigré, he soon began to lobby on behalf of French émigré priests and enlisted Frances to pen a pamphlet for the cause. While holding strong views himself, Burney kept friends on both sides of the political divide. Burney was closely engaged with the musical, literary, scientific, and political circles of his day. Informative and entertaining, his letters add considerably to our knowledge of the man and the age.

This scholarly edition presents for the first time all of the known surviving letters of British novelist Sarah Harriet Burney (1772-1884). The overwhelming majority of these letters—more than ninety percent—have never before been published.Burney's accomplishments, says Lorna J. Clark, have been unjustly overlooked. She published five works of fiction between 1796 and 1839, all of which met with reasonable success, including Traits of Nature (1812), which sold out within three months. These letters position Burney among her fellow women writers and shed light on her relations with her publisher and her ambivalence toward her own work and her readership. Her lively observation of the literary scene evinces the range and scope of her reading, as well as her awareness of literary trends and developments. Burney was, for example, remarkably prescient in recognizing, and praising from the first, the talent of Jane Austen, and met several of the authors of her day.A challenging new perspective on family matters also emerges in the letters. The youngest child of the second marriage of Charles Burney, and the only daughter to remain unmarried, Sarah Harriet had the unenviable task of caring for her father in his later years. Her letters reveal a darker side of Dr. Burney, and also help to round out our image of a more favored daughter, Sarah Harriet's half-sister (and fellow novelist), Frances Burney.As literature, Clark observes, Burney's letters are, arguably, her best work. Thoroughly versed in the epistolary arts, she sought always to amuse and entertain her correspondents. Burney ultimately emerges as a quiet but heroic single woman, relegated to the margins of society where she struggled for independence and self-respect. Displaying literary qualities and a lively sense of humor, the letters provide a fascinating insight into the literary, political, and social life of the day.

Lucy Kennedy (c.1731–1826), had an insider’sview of life in Windsor castle and of members of the Royal Family for fifty-three years. Her diary, preserved in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, has never before been published.In it she writes a moving account of the death of Princess Amelia which precipitated the final illness of George III and the Regency. Her observations of his symptoms are relevant for modern-day diagnoses of his malady.