JANE AUSTEN AND FANNY BURNEY with John Wiltshire

This talk shows that there is much evidence of Austen’s affection for Fanny Burney’s books but suggests they were radically different writers.  Burney combined the romantic novel with the comic novel and she is most at home in the city, whereas Austen is a novelist of country life.  Most importantly, Austen was a great artist and Burney, for all the vivacity and incident of her novels, was not.

John Wiltshire was a Professor at La Trobe University until his retirement in 2007.  He is the author of several books about Jane Austen, and has edited Mansfield Park for the authoritative Cambridge edition.  His most recent book is The Cinematic Jane Austen (2009).