The Romance of Private Life:

by Sarah Harriet Burney

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Editor: Lorna J Clark

Chawton House Library
Chawton House Library: Women's Novels

Burney’s last novel, The Romance of Private Life (1839) contains two striking tales. Based on her travels on the continent, The Renunciation presents a colourful picture of life abroad. An English girl travels to Italy in search of kin and supports herself as an artist, offering an early feminist heroine. The Hermitage is a gripping psychological thriller involving a ruined country maiden and an unsolved murder. With shades of the Gothic, it offers a case-study of the after-effects of trauma, anticipating the genre of the detective novel and challenging prevailing critical assumptions of the patriarchal origins of the genre.

Reviews

'... an impeccable edition for scholars which will certainly draw the attention of those concerned with women’s literature and its evolution during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.'
– Carmen María Fernández Rodríguez, Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies

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