The English novelist and diarist Fanny Burney (1752-1840) was one of the most popular novelists of the late 18th century. She was also an important chronicler of English manners, morals, and society.

Fanny Burney, originally named Frances, was the daughter of Dr. Charles Burney, the distinguished historian of music. She captured London's literary society with the publication of Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, the best of her four extant novels. Although she had begun to compose Evelina as early as 1767, she did not publish it until 1778, and then only anonymously. The heroine's search for a father and a husband exposes both the vanity and affectation of life among the upper class and the vulgarity and lack of feeling which she associates with low life. An effective novel told in letters, it displays Burney's wit, knowledge of English society, technical versatility, sentiment...