Person    | Female  Born 13/6/1752  Died 6/1/1840

Frances (Fanny) Burney

Categories: Literature, Theatre

Countries: Belgium, France

Born King's Lynn, Norfolk, father was Dr Charles Burney. Diarist, novelist: Evelina (1778), Cecelia (1782), Camilla (1796) and playwright. Her first novel, Evelina, was a big success and she entered literary society becoming good friends with Samuel Johnson. She became a member of the royal court, as an attendant to Queen Charlotte, 1786 - 1791, during which she witnessed one of King George III's first major periods of mental illness. When she left she was given a life-long pension and remained friends with the royal family. In 1793 married Alexandre D'Arblay, an exile from France. They returned to Paris and while there Fanny suffered a mastectomy without anaesthetic, which she then wrote about in horrific detail in a letter to her sister. In France 1802 - 1812 but returned to England with her son to avoid him being conscripted. She met Louis XVIII while they were both in London. When Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815 she was in Paris and only just escaped as he entered. She was in Brussels in 1815 during the Battle of Waterloo. She then returned to England and lived in Bath and London for the rest of her life, dying at 29 Lower Grosvenor Street, Mayfair. Certainly not a dull life.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Frances (Fanny) Burney

Commemorated ati

Fanny Burney

Erected in 1885 this is the oldest surviving "blue" plaque to a woman.

Read More

Sir Isaac Newton's house- detailed

plaque inside building at top of stairway directly facing entrance

Read More

Other Subjects

Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford

Born Surrey as Ford Hermann Hueffer, of an English mother and German father, Francis Heuffer. Grew up in Pre-Raphaelite circles. On the death of their father in 1889 Ford and his brother went to li...

Person, Literature, France, Germany, USA

1 memorial
Sir William Addison

Sir William Addison

Historian and author. Born William Wilkinson Addison at Mitton, Lancashire. He moved to Buckhurst Hill on the edge of Epping Forest, Essex, and began a lifelong association with the area, which res...

Person, Law, Literature

1 memorial
Eric Benfield, FRSA

Eric Benfield, FRSA

Eric Benfield was born on 9 June 1902 in Swanage, Dorset, the third of the four children of Charles Benfield (1866-1936) and Adelaide Benfield née Smith (1868-1943). His birth was registered in the...

Person, Literature, Peace, Sculpture, Tragedy

1 memorial
Frederick Startridge  Ellis

Frederick Startridge Ellis

Born Richmond, Surrey. Bookseller and author. He published the works of William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who were also close friends. Rossetti wrote a limerick about him: "There’s a pub...

Person, Journalism / Publishing, Literature

1 memorial
Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express

Detective novel by Agatha Christie, featuring Hercule Poirot.

Fiction, Literature

1 memorial

Previously viewed

S. Bird
War dead, WW1
1 memorial
M. H. Briggs
War dead, WW1
1 memorial