Frances Burney was born in June 1752 into a family of precarious gentility. The Burneys had just moved to King’s Lynn in Norfolk, where Frances’s father, who was to become a signally important figure in her life, had secured a post as organist at St Margaret’s Church. Charles Burney, a musician and composer and a man of ambition, later became the author of the pioneering A General History of Music, published in four volumes from 1776 to 1789. While still a girl Frances acted as his amanuensis, and at ten, in her own words, ‘began scribbling … little works of invention’. There were five children in the family, who all remained close: Susanna, Frances’s younger sister, was especially dear to her, and it was to Susanna that many of the enormous number of letters that Frances was eventually to write were addressed. In 1759 the family moved to London, where three years later their mother died.