Reading Order
Cecilia Reading Order
Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782) by Fanny Burney is the novel that established Burney's place as the most important woman novelist between Fielding and Austen — a five-volume novel about Cecilia Beverley, an orphaned heiress of great fortune and greater virtue, who must navigate the social world of fashionable London under three successive guardians (a miser, a spendthrift, and a pompous man of honour) while managing her fortune, fending off impostors and fortune-hunters, and eventually falling in love with the virtuous but poor Mortimer Delvile — whose proud family refuses to allow any marriage that would force a Delvile to take a wife's name. The novel is longer and more ambitious than Evelina and less tightly constructed, but it is richer in social satire, more complex in its treatment of money and gender, and more willing to allow its heroine to suffer genuine, serious distress (the climactic scene of Cecilia's madness — brought on by persecution, financial ruin, and emotional exhaustion — is one of the most powerful scenes in eighteenth-century fiction). Jane Austen almost certainly took the phrase 'pride and prejudice' from the famous paragraph near Cecilia's end that attributes all the novel's misery to 'PRIDE AND PREJUDICE' — and the influence of Cecilia on Austen's entire œuvre is profound and pervasive.
Where to start
Cecilia (1782) — the Oxford World's Classics edition edited by Peter Sabor and Margaret Anne Doody (1988; 2008) is the standard scholarly edition with the best introduction. The novel is very long (five volumes); the first two volumes (the three guardian households, London society) are slower; the pace accelerates significantly in volumes three through five. Reading Evelina first is not required but provides context for Burney's development.
Complete Cecilia Book List
- 1Buy
Cecilia (Oxford World's Classics)
Fanny Burney (ed. Peter Sabor and Margaret Anne Doody)·2008·The standard scholarly edition — Doody's introduction is the definitive account of Cecilia's place in Burney's career and its influence on Austen; essential notes on the London social world and the legal context of the heiress plot. - 2Buy
Evelina
Fanny Burney·1778·Burney's first novel and the most immediately accessible of her works — Evelina's entry into society is the precursor to Cecilia's more complex social navigation; read first to see Burney at her most spontaneous and funny. - 3Buy
Camilla
Fanny Burney·1796·Burney's third major novel, published fourteen years after Cecilia — longer and more morally complex; Jane Austen subscribed to it by name and it shows Burney's mature style. - 4Buy
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen·1813·Austen took the phrase 'pride and prejudice' from Cecilia's famous climactic paragraph and the entire structure of the Delvile plot (the proud family refusing marriage to an inappropriate partner) is the source for the Darcy/Bennet situation; reading Cecilia shows where Pride and Prejudice came from. - 5Buy
Fanny Burney: A Biography
Claire Harman·2000·The best modern biography — Harman traces Burney's extraordinary life (court attendance to Queen Charlotte, emigration to France, marriage to a French general, mastectomy without anesthesia) and the composition of all four major novels.
Cecilia — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Cecilia by Fanny Burney about?
Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782) by Fanny Burney follows Cecilia Beverley, an orphaned heiress who must live with three successive guardians in fashionable London while managing her fortune, fending off fortune-hunters, and navigating the complex social world of the 1780s. She falls in love with Mortimer Delvile, but his family's pride (they refuse any marriage that would force a Delvile to take a wife's name) creates an apparently insuperable obstacle. The novel ends with Cecilia's genuine suffering — financial ruin, a period of madness, and eventual vindication — and is one of the most emotionally ambitious novels of the eighteenth century.
What is Cecilia's influence on Jane Austen?
Cecilia (1782) had a profound influence on Jane Austen. The phrase 'pride and prejudice' comes directly from Cecilia's climactic paragraph: 'The whole of this unfortunate business has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE.' The Delvile family's refusal to allow Mortimer to take his wife's name because it would contaminate the Delvile line is the direct ancestor of the Darcy/Bennet conflict in Pride and Prejudice. More broadly, Burney's social comedy, her treatment of the intelligent woman navigating a world that does not properly value her, and her mixture of sharp satirical observation with genuine emotional depth are the immediate precursors of Austen's mature method.
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