The Journals and Letters of Susan Burney: Music and Society in Late Eighteenth-Century England [Paperback]

Susan Burney (1755-1800) was the third daughter of the music historian Charles Burney and the younger sister of the novelist Frances (Fanny) Burney. She grew up in London, where she was able to observe at close quarters the musical life of the capital and to meet the many musicians, men of letters, and artists who visited the family home. After her marriage in 1782 to Molesworth Phillips, a Royal Marines officer who served with Captain Cook on his last voyage, she lived in Surrey and later in rural Ireland. Burney was a knowledgeable enthusiast for music, and particularly for opera, with discriminating tastes and the ability to capture vividly musical life and the personalities involved in it. Her extensive journals and letters, a selection from which is presented here, provide a striking portrait of social, domestic and cultural life in London, the Home Counties and in Ireland in the late eighteenth century. They are of the greatest importance and interest to music and theatre historians, and also contain much that will be of significance and interest for Burney scholars, social historians of England and Ireland, women's historians and historians of the family.Contents: General introduction; Biographical introduction; Textual introduction. The Journals and Letters of Susan Burney, 1779-1799: Streatham and Chessington, September 1779; London, October 1779-June 1780; Chessington, October 1780; Chessington, April 1783; Norbury Park, June 1784; Boulogne, February 1785; Mickleham, June 1786-March 1787; Windsor, April 1787; Mickleham and London, May 1787-July 1794; London, November 1795-September 1796; The journey to Ireland, October 1796; Dublin and Belcotton, October 1796-December 1799; Parkgate, December 1799; Bibliography; Index.Susan Burney (1755-1800), daughter of the music historian Charles Burney and sister of the novelist Frances (Fanny) Burney, was a knowledgeable enthusiast for music, particularly for opera, with the ability to capture vividly musical life al&