Stewart Cooke – författare

This book contains Charles Burney's letters from the age of 74 to 80, a period during which he retired from teaching but, far from slowing down despite frequent bouts of illness, continued to write, publishing his last book, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Abate Metastasio, and writing 1,752 general music articles and musical biographies for Rees's Cyclopaedia in a mere four years. Discussions of musical matters in these range from deliberations of foreign instruments to theoretical concerns such as the doctrine of the Trinity applied to music, to the history of dramatic music in Italy, and to more mundane technical matters such as the origins of ledger lines and the staff. Although he was his time's preeminent scholar of older music, Burney was a staunch defender of new music by contemporary composers against the sneers of the English Handelians. Of special interest is his heart-felt defence of Haydn's The Creation against the disparagements of the critic Willam Crotch.In contrast to his progressive views on music, Burney was a political conservative. A self-proclaimed 'alarmist', he had much to worry about in these years. His fears included the possibility of not living to finish the Cyclopaedia articles and the loss of £2,000 worth of books owing to the bankruptcy of his publishers. The Napoleonic Wars and their effects on domestic politics are of special concern throughout the volume illuminating Burney's hatred of the French Revolution and deep-rooted distrust of Napoleon and the Peace of Amiens.Nonetheless, despite his labours, the eminently clubbable Burney found time for travel. The letters detail jaunts to Bristol and Wells Cathedrals, visits to Quarley in Hampshire; stays at Bulstrode Park in Buckinghamshire, and holidays in Cheltenham. Highlights are a hiking accident on Worcestershire Beacons in which Burney falls and injures his hip and a holiday with a granddaughter in Clifton where he describes the Parade, the assembly rooms, the hot wells, riverside walks, and ladies riding donkeys. Whether working at home in Chelsea, visiting friends, or travelling throughout the countryside, the indefatigable Burney was never still for long.

This volume of letters by Charles Burney, the first to be published since 1991, runs from 1794 to 10 January 1800, beginning with his recovery from a debilitating attack of rheumatism, continuing with the death of his wife in 1796, and ending with the shocking death of his daughter Susanna. Certain leitmotifs, typical of Burney's concerns, stand out throughout the volume: his trepidation over the war with France and its effect on domestic politics, his exhausting social life, his travels, and his publication of the memoirs of the poet and lyricist Metastasio.A staunch monarchist and a self-confessed 'allarmist', Burney is haunted 'day and night' by the French Revolution and the threat that Republican France poses to 'religion, morals, liberty, property, & life'. He frets frequently over those he considers to be domestic Jacobins, a word he uses forty-seven times in the course of the volume to describe anyone whose politics differ from his own conservative values.Although Burney turns sixty-eight in April 1794, in this volume he barely slows down his habitual hectic pace of teaching and publishing. In the summer of 1795, he publishes his final book, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Abate Pietro Metastasio, despite a hectic social life that sees him hobnobbing with the elite in society and politics and a love of travel that takes him to the homes of friends in Hampshire and Cheshire and into his past on a nostalgic visit to Shrewsbury, his childhood home.

This volume is the second of six that will present in their entirety Frances Burney's journals and letters from 17 July 1786, when she assumed the position of Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte, until 7 July 1791, when she resigned her position because of ill health. Burney's later journals have been edited as The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame d'Arblay), 1791-1840 (12 vols., 1972-84). Her earlier journals have been edited as The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (4 vols. to date, 1988- ). The Court Journals and Letters of Frances Burney continues the modern editing of Burney's surviving journals and letters, from 1768 until her death in 1840. The only previous edition of the Court journals and letters is the Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay, edited by Burney's niece Charlotte Barrett and published by Henry Colburn in seven volumes, 1842-46. Barrett's edition, however, is heavily abridged. For the Court years, it excludes about half of the extant material, which will be printed in the present volumes for the first time. In addition, Barrett made no attempt to recover the thousands of lines obliterated by Burney in the Court journals and letters, and indeed added many further deletions of her own. Barrett's edition was subsequently revised by Austin Dobson in a six-volume edition, 1904-05, containing new annotations and illustrations, but no alterations to the text.The present edition includes every extant letter that Burney wrote during her five years at Court, as well as all of her copious journals. The elderly Madame d'Arblay attempted to edit her own journals and letters, making numerous changes that would, she believed, make them fitter for publication. This edition aims to restore the manuscripts, as far as possible, to their original state. It recovers the words, lines, and entire passages that Madame d'Arblay strove to conceal and it contains a comprehensive commentary on the text.This volume reveals Burney's struggles to adjust to the customs, rituals, and trials of a life of service in the Court of George III, a life she saw as analogous to entering a convent. It details year-long battles with her co-Keeper of the Robes, the imperious Elizabeth Schwellenberg, whose cruel behaviour Burney suffers in dignified silence, and with the Reverend Charles de Guiffardière, the Queen's reader in French, whose interest in Burney seems to extend beyond admiration for her novels. Her respect, reverence, and affection for the Royal family grow as she comes to know them better, while her place at Court brings her into contact with some interesting company among the permanent courtiers, the changing equerries, and the occasional celebrity visitors.