"Rummaging, Sorting, Selecting, Preserving or Destroying": Frances Burney d'Arblay as Editor

abstract:Frances Burney d'Arblay (1752–1840) published her final novel, The Wanderer, in 1814. For the remainder of her life, she was engaged in three massive editorial projects, only one of which was brought to completion. This essay is concerned primarily with d'Arblay's editing of her own letters, focusing on a ten-year stretch of material: the period from 1802 to 1812 that she spent in France, initially as a visitor and then as a virtual prisoner of Napoleon. I am concerned with aspects of her editing that have been largely ignored: d'Arblay's prioritization of the letters available to her, the headnotes that she provided for them, and her retrospective insertions of additional material.