Claire Harman
Tying the Windsor Knots
The Court Journals and Letters of Frances Burney, Volume I: 1786 & Volume II: 1787
By Peter Sabor (ed Vol I) & Stewart Cooke (ed Vol II)
Oxford University Press 400pp £100; 360pp £100
When the novelist Fanny Burney arrived at Windsor Castle in July 1786 to take up a position in the royal household as Second Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte, she found herself the object of envy amongst those at court who had had their own candidates in mind for the job: ‘I see them with difficulty forbear exclaiming “Lord! How odd it is to see you here!”’ Burney wrote in the long, desperately unhappy diary that became the only release for her feelings. The job was, indeed, an extremely inappropriate one for a shy, proud, unfashionable middle-class woman whose claim to distinction lay in writing. And no one could have been less pleased or grateful about the new situation than the supposedly lucky 34-year-old herself.
Burney could not have refused the post (which carried an income of £200 and a lifetime pension) without causing trouble for her father, who had ambitions to become Master of the King’s Band, but she bitterly resented giving up her home and all its freedoms for a life of royal
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
‘The Second World War was won in Oxford. Discuss.’
@RankinNick gives the question his best shot.
Nicholas Rankin - We Shall Fight in the Buttery
Nicholas Rankin: We Shall Fight in the Buttery - Oxford’s War 1939–1945 by Ashley Jackson
literaryreview.co.uk
For the first time, all of Sylvia Plath’s surviving prose, a massive body of stories, articles, reviews and letters, has been gathered together in a single volume.
@FionaRSampson sifts it for evidence of how the young Sylvia became Sylvia Plath.
Fiona Sampson - Changed in a Minute
Fiona Sampson: Changed in a Minute - The Collected Prose of Sylvia Plath by Peter K Steinberg (ed)
literaryreview.co.uk
The ruling class has lost its sprezzatura.
On porky rolodexes and the persistence of elite reproduction, for the @Lit_Review: