This collection of essays by leading scholars in Burney studies provides an innovative, interdisciplinary critical consideration of the relationship of one of the major authors of the long English Romantic period with the arts. The encounter was not devoid of tensions and indeed often required a degree of wrangling on Burney’s part. This was a revealing and at times contentious dialogue, allowing us to reconstruct in an original and highly focused way the feminine negotiation with such key concepts of the late Enlightenment and Romanticism as virtue, reputation, creativity, originality, artistic expression, and self-construction. While there is now a flourishing body of work on Frances Burney and, more broadly, Romantic women authors, this book concentrates for the first time on the rich artistic and material context that surrounded, supported, and shaped Frances Burney’s oeuvre.

Francesca Saggini is Professor in English Literature at the Università della Tuscia, Italy, and Senior Associate at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, UK. Currently, she is Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She has published widely on modern and contemporary topics, including the award-winning Backstage in the Novel: Frances Burney and the Theatre Arts (2012).