The Court Journals and Letters of Frances Burney: 1789

Frances Burney (1752-1840), author Evelina and other novels, was an active diarist and correspondent with a wide circle of relatives and friends throughout her adult life. Her journals and letters are an important source of information about English social life from 1768 to 1838. In the years 1786-91, she served Queen Charlotte as Keeper of the Robes, acquiring a detailed knowledge of the events and people in the court of King George III. This volume is the record of one of those years, 1789, a year in which the King recovered from his madness, the Court took a leisurely tour through the southwest counties of England, and Burney was disappointed in love by the romantic (if sometimes melancholy) Vice-Chamberlain of the Queen, Colonel Stephen Digby. To her sister Susannah Phillips, Burney confided her most secret hopes and reservations, subjecting herself to a rigorous examination as she sought to balance prudence with feeling. Fatigued by her service to the Queen and distressed by the inscrutable moodiness of Colonel Digby, Burney lived through and recorded the details of one of the most memorable years of the national life of Great Britain.

This volume is the fifth of six volumes that will present in their entirety Frances Burney’s journals and letters from July 1786, when she assumed the position of Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte, to her resignation in July 1791. Burney’s later journals have been edited as The Journals andLetters 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.

This volume includes all of her journals, diaries, and letters from the momentous year 1789, the year in which the King recovered from his madness, the Court toured the southwestern counties of England, and Burney endured a frustrating romance with the Queen’s Vice-Chamberlain. The text is a full and accurate edition of Burney’s manuscripts held at the New York Public Library and the British Library.