The Witlings
In 1779, encouraged by the public’s warm reception of comic material in Evelina, and with offers of help from Arthur Murphy and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Burney began to write a dramatic comedy called The Witlings.
The play satirised a wide segment of London Society, including the literary world and its pretensions. It was not published at the time because Burney's father Dr. Charles Burney and a good friend, Samuel Crisp, thought the work would offend the public and seem to mock the Bluestockings. The play tells the story of Celia and Beaufort, lovers kept apart by their families due to “economic insufficiency”. Frances was convinced by her father and by Samuel Crisp not to have it performed, because they had reservations about the propriety of a woman writing comedy.
Her plays came to light in 1945 when her papers were acquired by the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library. A complete edition of the plays was published in Montreal in 1995, edited by Peter Sabor, Geoffrey Sill, and Stewart Cooke.
Read more about this topic: Frances Burney