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
Sir Alan Herbert
Author and politician. Born Alan Patrick Herbert at Ashtead Lodge, Ashtead, Leatherhead. He was called to the bar, but never practised. Joined Punch magazine as a writer in 1924 and went on to writ...
Person, Literature, Music / songs, Politics & Administration
After the Battle Publications
Publishers of books and magazines about military history.
Sir Edmund Gosse
Born 13 Trafalgar Terrace (now 56 Mortimer Road), Hackney, son of Philip Gosse. Writer, best known for his book ‘Father and Son’ which is partly autobiographical and depicts the new generation free...
Charles Lamb
Born at 2 Crown Office Row, Inner Temple. Studied at Christ's Hospital where he became friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Elia" is the pseudonym Lamb used for a series of essays he wrote for th...
Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Humourist and writer. Born in Shepherd's Bush, he invented the verse form which took his middle name (his mother's maiden name), and is a four-line nonsense poem about a famous person; an example b...
Previously viewed
Western Postal District war memorial - Rathbone Place
W1, Rathbone Place, Post Office Sorting Office
The plaque does not point out that not all of the WW2 names were in the armed forces when killed: H. F. Phillips had survived his service...
190 subjects commemorated
Bronze Age Ltd
Casting foundry based at the Limehouse Basin. It provides a service to artists who wish to cast their original sculptures in bronze or aluminium. Owned and run by Mark Kennedy.
J. Studds & Son
A building firm based in Barretts Grove, Stoke Newington, active in 1891. Sludgegulper has done the research for us: From British History "In 1880 John Studds, a builder and former carpenter, built...
Dame Nellie Melba
Operatic soprano. Born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell in Melbourne, Australia. 1882 briefly married Charles Armstrong and had one son, but soon separated. She took up a singing career and came to E...
Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them