A Burney conference entitled ‘ The family and education in Burney’s life and work’ will be held at Caius College in July 2013. Those who attend will be given the opportunity to visit King’s Lynn, the birth place of the Burney children. A call for papers will be going out early 2012.

On 16 June 2012, the Burney Society will visit Strawberry Hill, Horace Walpole’s extravagant Gothic villa. It has recently reopened after an ambitious refurbishment project. Stephen Clarke, one of the Trustees of Strawberry Hill, will not only be our guide for the day but will also give a talk about the Burney’s family connections with Walpole’s eccentric house.

Frances Burney spent almost five years at the court of George III as Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte, from 17 July 1786 to 7 July 1791. During this time, she produced a voluminous body of journals and letters, which were edited and published by her niece Charlotte Barrett in the mid-nineteenth century. This edition is far from complete, however. Barrett deleted many passages deemed improper or too private for the Victorian reading public. Moreover, she did not have the modern techniques to recover those bits and pieces that Burney herself obliterated while editing her own writings before her death. So, it was high time for a new series of editions! This fall, Oxford University Press presented the publication of the first two of a six-volume edition called Court Journals and Letters of Frances Burney.

Peter Sabor and Stewart Cooke (see photo) edited these first two volumes, together with the help of a number of helpful and hard-working research assistants, amongst whom Laura Kopp, Hilary Havens, Joanne Holland and Elaine Bander. As Prof. Sabor writes in the Burney Letter (Fall 2011): ‘ Readers of volume one will see, inter alia, the full extent of Burney’s bewilderment and distress at the attempted assassination of George III by a deranged housemaid, Margaret Nicholson, recorded in both her formal journals and her private letters. They will also be able to follow her on her memorable visit to the Harcourts’ seat at Nuneham Courtenay (now the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University) and then to Oxford, where the King was making his first public appearance after his narrow escape. In volume two, we find Burney continuing her battles with her co-Keeper of the Robes, the imperious Elizabeth Schwellenberg, whose  cruel behaviour she suffers in dignified silence, and attempting to deal with the odd adavances of the Reverend Charles de Guiffardiere, the Queen’s reader in French, whose interest in Burney seems to extend beyond admiration for her novels.’

Volumes three and four, both edited by Lorna Clark, will follow in 2013. Those who already wish to start reading, visit the OUP website.

On Saturday 25 June, the Burney Society will have an outing to Kew Palace. There will be a guided tour of the Palace and there is a chance to admire the Kew Gardens as well as Queen Charlotte’s cottage. These events will be followed by lunch at the Orangery.

On Friday 1 April, actress Karin Fernald gives a Burney performance at the Vera Fletcher Hall in Thames Ditton. All invited! For further details, see the pdf document flyerKarinFernald

Posting for The Burney Centre
McGill University, Montreal
Peter Sabor, Director
29th November 2010.
Cross-listed: SHARP-L, ExLibris-L, Early Modern Women-L, The Burney Society
UK.

It is our pleasure at The Burney Centre to bring attention to new work on Frances Burney:

Bedazzled by Burney by Maureen E. Mulvihill (Princeton Research Forum, NJ), commissioned by The Burney Letter, editor Lorna Clark, (Spring 2010). Published as special feature insert. 8 images. Now hosted, with colour images, on The Burney Centre website at: http://burneycentre.mcgill.ca/mulvihill.pdf

This article documents recent market values in Burney’s books, manuscripts, and images at the sale of the Paula Peyraud Collection of mostly women writers of the 18thC and Georgian period (Bloomsbury Auctions, NY, May 2009; detailed auction report, with images, by Dr Mulvihill, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Fall, 2009). Bedazzled by Burney is also listed, with images, on the ILAB website, the Fine Books & Collecting Blog, Veery Books (NYC) website,et.al.

Of special importance in this recent report on Burney sales is the Buyers’ List, which identifies buyers, prices, and the new locations of Burney acquisitions, thus offering attractive research opportunities.

As many as eight images are included in this new piece, such as the beloved portrait miniature of Burney by John Bogle (Lot 185, $12,200), purchased by NYC collector, Prudence Carlson. A biographical sketch of the world’s greatest
Burney collector, Paula Fentress Peyraud (Chappaqua, NY, 1947-2008), with photo and Peyraud family bookplate, is also in this useful article.

With cordial regards from The Burney Centre,

Peter Sabor, Director, Burney Ctr.
Guest Speaker, Peyraud Auction Preview,
Bloomsbury Auctions, May 2009, NYC.
http://burneycentre.mcgill.ca/

Our last AGM was held on 2 October at King’s College London. This year’s talk was given by Kate Chisholm and was titled ‘Wits and Wives: The Women Who Knew Dr. Johnson’. Click on the following link to read the meeting’s minutes: BurneySocUK_AGM2010.

Frances Burney and the Gothic elements of her works will be the theme of the 17th annual general meeting of The Burney Society in North America on Thursday, Oct. 28, and Friday, Oct. 29, 2010, at the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower in downtown Portland, Oregon.

Cynthia Wall, Professor of English at the University of Virginia, will be the plenary speaker.  Professor Wall is the author of author of The Prose of Things: Transformation of Description in the Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2006) and The Literary and Cultural Spaces of Restoration London (Cambridge University Press, 1998), and the editor of Blackwell’s Concise Companion to the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (Blackwell, 2004).

Fifteen speakers will present papers on Burney and the Gothic, including such topics as “Deflating Gothic Clandestine Marriage in Cecilia,” “Evelina and Northanger Abbey: Allegories of the Real (Gothic),” “Death Embraced: Camilla’s Dream as Vampiric Fantasy,” “Frances Burney’s Economic Gothic,” and ““Edwy and Elgiva and Gothic Sexuality.”

The Burney Society will be sponsoring a reception on Thursday evening with the Jane Austen Society of North America at the Collins Gallery in Portland’s Multnomah County Library. The library will exhibit first editions of works by Burney, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Inchbald, Ann Radcliffe, Hannah More, Charlotte Smith, Amelia Opie, and Maria Edgeworth, as well as Burney letters and Gothic cartoons by Gillray and Rowlandson.  The exhibit is based upon the collections of Burney Society President Paula Stepankowsky, and Marian LaBeck and James Petts.

The Burney Society conference will begin with registration at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, and end at 12:30 p.m. on Friday.  The conference fee is $150, which includes the plenary, all discussion panels, two continental breakfasts, the reception, and Thursday dinner at the Hilton.  (Graduate student rate available; registration form attached to this posting.)  Anyone with questions can contact Alex Pitofsky, pitofskyah@appstate.edu, Secretary/Treasurer, or Paula Stepankowsky at pstepankowsky@comcast.net.

Hope to see you there!

2010 Burney Conference Registration Form