FANNY BURNEY

Fanny Burney wrote one wildly successful novel, Evelina, published in 1779: her other three were less enthusiastically received and are poorly regarded today. Devoted to her scholar-father, and at one time lady-in-waiting to the queen by the queen's request, she married for the first time at forty-one and spent many years in her husband's native France, where she brought up her only son. The story of her life is drably told with much invented conversation and tedious narration; the brilliance of the period and the celebrities she knew are never successfully evoked. An optional subject shabbily treated.