6 January: Boreham on Fanny Burney

The Evolution of a Diary
Today marks the anniversary of the death of a woman whom women must never forget. It was the wilful little fist of Fanny Burney that smashed to smithereens the crippling convention that it was unwomanly for women to write novels.

It all happened very simply. Like most girls, Fanny started a diary; unlike most girls, she persevered with it. In that diary she has given us the most convincing and realistic description in our possession of 18th century life. In its pages we seem actually to meet the pompous Johnson, the impish Garrick, the grave Reynolds and the mincing Gibbon. All the beauty, the glamour, and the quaintness that remarkable age are embalmed here like bees in amber. We smack our lips over those piquant and intimate touches that flood her glowing canvas with vivacity and charm. She persisted with that precious diary of hers until her trembling hand could no longer hold a quill. But the earlier entries, with their carefree abandon, are easily the best.

Whilst still very young, Fanny conceived a daring notion. There is alway something better than a cup of tea—two cups. If the keeping of one diary was such fun, why not keep two? She commenced the diary of Evelina. Evelina was her constant and darling companion. Nobody else ever saw her.

Truth to tell, Evelina was simply and purely a lively frolic of Fanny's vivid imagination. But, to Fanny herself, Evelina was intensely real. She would walk with her and talk with her, point out to her the loveliness of the landscape and the beauties of the garden. Just as other girls prattle away to their dolls, so Fanny Burney communed by day and by night with the invisible Evelina.

A Spark Of Genius Sets Society Aflame
As her fondness for the fair phantom increased, she found herself narrating, in this second journal, all kinds of touching and exciting incidents in her friend's experience. All the striking sayings and unselfish doings of the beloved Evelina were faithfully set down. After a while, Fanny found Evelina's diary even more enchanting than her own. In entering up her own, she was tyrannised by truth; in inditing Evelina's, she was gloriously fancy-free. And thus, without meaning to write a novel, without even knowing that she was engaged upon a novel, she had a novel half-written.

Then the whisperers took a hand in the destinies of poor Fanny. The work on which she was secretly occupied, was they said, nothing more or less than a novel! They were shocked, horrified, scandalised. A woman to write a novel! It was an unheard-of enormity! They pleaded, cajoled, threatened, stormed.

No young lady, they insisted, could possibly publish a novel without whelming all her kinsfolk and acquaintances in unutterable and indelible disgrace. On one memorable occasion, they actually coaxed her into making a bonfire of some of her earlier folios.


A Bright Day Becomes Clouded
The women of the world should celebrate the anniversary by erecting a statue to Miss Burney. Upon its pedestal, two notable scenes in their heroine's career should appear in bas relief. The one would portray the young authoress, despairing of ever inducing a biased public to read a woman's work, committing to the flames the manuscripts to which she has devoted such patient care. The other would represent the famous occasion on which Fanny danced a jig to Daddy Crisp round the huge mulberry tree at Chessington. "Evelina" had been published anonymously and Dr. Johnson who was in the secret, had stayed up all night to read it and was unstinted in its praise. "The doctor's letter," Fanny confesses, "gave me such a flight of spirits that I danced a jig to Mr. Crisp without any preparation, music, or explanation, to his no small amazement and diversion." Fanny was 26 by this time. Without dreaming of such a thing, she had become the pioneer of a new age.

She lived to be a very old woman. Her life was by no means a happy one. A favourite with the Royal family, she was offered a position at Court. Fancying that a refusal would represent an affront to the Throne, she accepted. She became a Keeper of the Robes. Her hours were long; her duties were menial; her pay was small; she was associated with sycophants whom she abhorred; and she spent five years in abject misery.

But when we scan the list of feminine writers who have followed the trail that she blazed, we recognise the immensity of our indebtedness to her. It would be a thousand pities if the bicentenary of such a benefactor, which occurs this year, were to pass unheeded.[1]

F W Boreham

Image: Fanny Burney

[1] This editorial appeared in the Hobart Mercury on November 15, 1952.