You have crowded into a few small volumes an incredible variety of characters most of them well planned, well supported, and well contrasted with each other. The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth. There are few–I believe I may say fairly there are none at all–that will not find themselves better informed concerning human nature, and their stock of observation enriched, by reading your “Cecilia.” They certainly will, let their experience in life and manners be what it may. Madam,–I should feel exceedingly to blame if I could refuse to myself the natural satisfaction, and to you the just but poor return, of my best thanks for the very great instruction and entertainment I have received from the new present you have bestowed on the public. The title of Miss Austen’s _Pride and Prejudice_ was borrowed from _Cecilia_, and some points of resemblance may be traced between the two novels.ĬECILIA, or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Miss Burney often took the name of her characters from her acquaintances, and it seems probable that some of the “types” in _Cecilia_ are also drawn from real life. We cannot to-day fully appreciate the “conflict scene between mother and son,” for which, Miss Burney tells us, the book was written but the pictures of eighteenth century affectations are all alive, and the story is thoroughly absorbing, except, perhaps, in the last book. The touch is surer and the plot more elaborate.

Under these circumstances it is naturally less fresh and spontaneous than _Evelina_, but it is more mature. Dr Johnson was not consulted, but a desire at once to imitate and to please him evidently controlled the work. The manuscript of _Cecilia_ was submitted to Dr Burney and Mr Crisp during its composition, and their suggestions were in some cases adopted, as we learn from the _Diary_. It is now going into the third edition, though Payne owns that they printed two thousand at the first edition, and Lowndes told me five hundred was the common number for a novel.” Most people say she ought to have had a thousand. “She had 250 pounds for it from Payne and Cadell. “Fanny’s Cecilia came out last summer, and is as much liked and read, I believe, as any book ever was,” wrote Charlotte Burney in Jan. Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Cecilia by Frances Burney