Frances Burney
Frances Burney d'Arblay made a new kind of English novel, recording things that happened from George III's madness to what happened after the Battle of Waterloo. She also wrote comedies that had a great influence on many writers to come. For example, Jane Austen found both the theme and the title for Pride and Prejudice in the last chapter of Frances Burney's novel Cecilia. William Makepeace Thackeray, the writer of Vanity Fair, was also influenced by Burney. Her first novel, Evelina, was a new kind of fiction in English. It was a fiction where women in society were shown in realistic, modern ways - the novel of manners. "She showed the manners and morals of polite society with a relish (liking) for the ridiculous (funny) and a respect for the conventional (traditional)".(Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, p. 242) Burney was the first woman to make the writing of novels "respectable". Her second novel, Cecilia, published in 1782, was an even greater critical success. Her third novel, Camilla, was very popular; the sale was "4 times that of Evelina, & nearly double that of Cecilia".