Frances Burney - Comedies

Comedies

In the period from 1797 to 1801 she wrote three comedies that were not to be published in her lifetime: Love and Fashion, A Busy Day and The Woman Hater.

The latter is partially a reworking of themes from The Witlings, but with the satiric elements softened, with more emphasis on reforming her characters’ negative traits. The play, first performed in December 2007 at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London, retains one of the central characters, Lady Smatter – an absent-minded but inveterate quoter of poetry, perhaps perceived as a comic rendering of a bluestocking type of literary woman. All the other characters differ.