| Description | Addressed 'To Fanny'. Writes with news of acquaintances, personal and domestic news. Signs 'Adieu, my dear children ..... Your affectionate paternal friend, Charles Burney'
The original catalogue entry thought this letter might be written to Charles Burney's sister Fanny, Madame d'Arblay, but a researcher thinks it is more likely to be addressed to his daughter-in-law Frances Burney née Bentley Young. |
| Notes | Information supplied by researcher Dr. Sophie Coulombeau in September 2025.
Though catalogued as being to the novelist and dramatist Frances d'Arblay née Burney (Charles Burney's older sister), I think this letter is more likely to be addressed to his daughter-in-law Frances Burney née Bentley Young, c. 1792-1878 (both went by the nickname 'Fanny'). It is the seventeenth page of the letter (!), the first sixteen pages apparently having been addressed to Fanny’s *sposo* (husband) and Charles’s only son, Charles Parr Burney. After writing briefly 'to Fanny', Charles then addresses them both. In the remainder of the letter, Charles refers to both his addressees jointly as 'my dear Children', characterises himself as a 'paternal friend', and reports on the health of their 'mother' (this would be Charles’s wife, Sarah Rose “Rosette” Burney). None of this fits with the addressee being Frances Burney D’Arblay, Charles's elder sister, who was in France at that time, and whose mother had long passed away. |