BIB_ID
408157
Accession number
MA 35.47
Creator
Arblay, Alexandre Jean Baptiste Piochard, comte d', 1754-1818.
Display Date
[1795 March].
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1905.
Description
1 item (1 page, with address) ; 25.8 x 19.9 cm
Notes
FBA adds a line at the end of the letter.
There is no date of writing. In The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Hemlow suggests March 22nd as the date of writing and argues that this would have been the last day on which FBA would not have known that the public knew she was the author of "Edwy and Elgiva," which premiered on March 21st. See the published correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
The letter has been postdated "23 Apr 1795" in pencil, but there is no evidence supporting this date.
No place of writing is given. Hemlow lists Greenwich as the likely place of writing, since FBA and her husband left for a three-week trip to Greenwich immediately after the premiere of "Edwy and Elgiva."
Address panel with seal: "Capt James Burney / James Street No. / Westminster."
There is no date of writing. In The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Hemlow suggests March 22nd as the date of writing and argues that this would have been the last day on which FBA would not have known that the public knew she was the author of "Edwy and Elgiva," which premiered on March 21st. See the published correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
The letter has been postdated "23 Apr 1795" in pencil, but there is no evidence supporting this date.
No place of writing is given. Hemlow lists Greenwich as the likely place of writing, since FBA and her husband left for a three-week trip to Greenwich immediately after the premiere of "Edwy and Elgiva."
Address panel with seal: "Capt James Burney / James Street No. / Westminster."
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer Quaritch in July 1905 as part of a collection of Burney's correspondence and fragments of manuscripts, bound in three volumes. Disbound in 1925.
Summary
[M.d'A]: Asking James if he would copy and send them the reports in the newspapers about "Edwy and Elgiva"; writing that FBA "receives from all parts the intelligence that all the papers have acquainted the Public with her Secret [i.e. that she was the author of "Edwy and Elgiva," which had been presented anonymously]. We see three Papers, in which nothing upon that Subject is to be found, and I am sure that Heaven is Silent upon this topic, since I have in vain read over the Sun & the Star"; adding that he sends back "your Banknote with a thousand thanks, & as many loves"; mentioning that "your Sister & the baby [Alex] are well, but very angry against this dreadful weather which retards their going on quickly"; [FBA]: telling James that "I am dying to see these paragraphs -- Pray, pray copy them --."
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