Frances Burney (1776–1828)
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Frances Burney (1776 – 1828), governess and author, was the niece of Frances Burney the well-known novelist. One of eight children of musicians Esther (Hetty) Burney (1749–1832) and Charles Rousseau Burney (1747–1819), she became a governess at the age of eighteen and worked in various such posts for the rest of her life.
In 1818 she published Tragic dramas; chiefly intended for representation in private families: to which is added, Aristodemus, a tragedy, from the Italian of Vincenzo Monti. Given this sub-title, Emma Plaskitt speculates that Burney was affected by "the concerns of her grandfather Charles Burney (1726–1814) about the potential impropriety of the stage, particularly for female dramatists."
Suffering from chronic ill health, she died in 1828 in Bath.
[edit] Plays
- Fitzormond, or, Cherished Resentment (1818)
- Malek Adhel, the Champion of the Crescent (1818)
[edit] References
- Plaskitt, Emma. “Burney, Frances (1776–1828).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 30 Nov. 2006.