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4 - The frailties of Fanny

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

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Summary

With the publication of Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen has by no means finished with the stereotypes of the oppositional polemical novel of the nineties, but her next work after the publication of Pride and Prejudice brings a somewhat different feature of contemporary fiction more centrally into play – the exemplary girl who battles with worldliness and vice, emerging ultimately victorious after innumerable tribulations, misunderstandings and accusations. She is often, though not always, orphaned, or for some other reason dependent on the protection of powerful relations.

Emmeline, Cecilia, Camilla and Belinda are examples of this kind of heroine, and though, as we have seen, Austen was not unreservedly admiring of either Fanny Burney or Maria Edgeworth, and had already parodied Emmeline in Northanger Abbey, they display enough signs of human frailty to be more to her taste than other pattern females who appear in novels which she specifically scorns in her letters to Cassandra and Anna. Sarah Burney's Clarentine (1798) concerns a girl who, despite temptations, never deviates, even in thought, from the accepted path of right conduct. Austen is unreservedly scathing about this one in a letter to Cassandra. Two other novelists are mentioned by her in disparaging terms – Hannah More, whose Cœlebs in Search of a Wife came out in 1808, and Mary Brunton, who published Self-control in 1810. All three novels clearly set out to instruct whilst at the same time entertaining a public hungry for fiction as well as for moral guidance.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1999

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  • The frailties of Fanny
  • Mary Waldron
  • Book: Jane Austen and the Fiction of her Time
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511484667.005
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  • The frailties of Fanny
  • Mary Waldron
  • Book: Jane Austen and the Fiction of her Time
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511484667.005
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The frailties of Fanny
  • Mary Waldron
  • Book: Jane Austen and the Fiction of her Time
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511484667.005
Available formats
×