Victoria Glendinning
A True Heroine of Her Time
Fanny Burney who was born in 1852, is one of those figures of whom most people have heard, but about whom rather little is generally known. Her first two novels, Evelina and Cecilia, astute and risqué comedies of manners, were immediately popular, though when she told her father she was writing a book ‘he could not help laughing’, and it is for her diaries that she is most enjoyed today.
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'She must pretend to be a walking companion, observe without being noticed and paint the subject from memory, in secret. It's a superb metaphor for the female artist, hidden from history.'
@nclarke14 ponders the resonance of 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/portraits-of-ladies
'And there in the evening the bride and the gamekeeper
Wait with their faces averted, wait
For the signal to shift and the lamp to glow red
And a train to arrive, but not yet and not yet.'
'It Says Here', from Sean O'Brien's upcoming collection.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/it-says-here
https://literaryreview.co.uk/here-there-everywhere-2
Everyone must have been queueing up to review the new Craig Brown Beatles book, which is obviously brilliant – but kudos to @Lit_Review and @DrDominicGreen for conspiring to bring us this bravura reviewing performance (free to read)