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Frances Burney, Cecilia, Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 1988

Burney's eighteenth-century novel gives a fascinating insight into 18th century upper class life. It is a study of hypocrisy and selfishness, shallow characters with money, with emphasis on the mistaken importance of appearance, and not of character or substance.

Cecilia is saintly but misjudged, talked about but not interrogated. Others all speak for her and about her, and the idea of feminine powerlessness and silence is heavily pursued, as is the idea of the failure of those around her to perceive true quality.

It is Dickensian in places, especially because Cecilia is a saintly virgin, but also because Burney writes about the suffering of the poor, who depended on handouts, charity, and employment. When employed by the rich, Burney writes of the appalling frequency of their going unpaid, which leads to destitution, illness and death. The rich live the high life, run up debts, and have nointention of paying their bills.

There is an extraordinary depiction of men. All fail Cecilia, including her beloved. He is first seen as intelligent and interesting but is developed into a 'mummy's boy' which disgusts. His failure to protect Cecilia when the pair have fallen in love is negligent and weak, because he chooses instead to please his parents and accord with their desires. Cecilia is abandoned by him, misjudged by everyone around her, whilst the heiress of a huge fortune. She is preyed upon by a variety of unsuitable suitors, all after her money, but her inheritance depends on any future husband taking her name, instead of the other way about. Her lover's family cannot brook this loss of their family honour and this is the cause of her becoming outcast. The novel is about vanity balanced against worth.

There are very lengthy conversations, and complex sentence structuring, which makes navigating one's way through it quite tricky at times for a modern reader, but it's a terrific story, and gives a wonderful insight into the period. However, it is much tempered compared to Burney's first, uncensored novel, Evelina, which contains some shocking and hilarious behaviour. Following Burney's secret and successful, publication of her first novel, her father read all her work, deciding what was suitable or not for a young lady to publish. It is said that Cecilia is a protest against the controlling influence of men upon women of the time, and a critique of their repression, particularly the repression of female creativity. Burney was a dutiful daughter, and adhered to her father's opinion (as did the lover in her story). Cecilia eventually goes mad from trying to do the right thing by everyone, a shocking and salutory tale of the effects of total censure. With all that happens to her in the novel it is remarkable that she recovers. So, an almost happy ending, and an interesting historical tale well told, but it needs patience and dedication because of the length and detail.
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