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.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Frances (Fanny) Burney
Commemorated ati
Sir Isaac Newton's house- detailed
plaque inside building at top of stairway directly facing entrance
Other Subjects
Thomas Adolphus Trollope
Author. Born 16 Keppel Street, younger brother to Anthony.
Jean Rhys
Writer. Born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams in Hillsborough Street, Roseau, Dominica. She moved to England in 1910 and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After marrying in 1919, she moved...
Three Men in a Boat
Comic novel written by Jerome K. Jerome first published in 1889.
Mary Shelley
Born in London, at the Polygon building in Somers Town. Parents: William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Eleven days after her birth her mother died. Most famous for writing "Frankenstein". A freq...
James Hall (writer)
Writer and journalist. James Hall started the campaign to commemorate the first recording studio after he chanced upon it while researching his novel, The Industry Of Human Happiness, set in the ea...