This is the last novel Frances Burney wrote and, for some reason, the only one not currently in print which I think is a shame because for me this is the strongest of her novels (although not necessarily the easiest to read).

Published in 1814 (the same year as Jane Austen's Mansfield Park) but written more in an 18th century style and set mostly in England in 1793 against the background of the French Revolution, [The Wanderer] sets out how difficult it was for young women to survive at that time without the protection of a man or money (which generally also came from a man).

From a modern day viewpoint the book suffers from some repetitiveness in that Burney makes her heroine repeatedly try different solutions to her difficulties only to fail at each attempt but from an 18th/19th century perspective the point needed to be repeated. And whilst women now (thankfully) have more financial independence, the repeated themes of women being threatened by men, mistreated by men and doubted by men sadly felt all too relevant as I was reading this over the summer. So, not exactly a cheerful book despite the convenient 'happy' ending but I think an important one and one that deserves more attention (and an edition in print). ( )

No eighteenth century novel begins as memorably as this one. Escaping the French Revolution, a group of English people are secreted on board a ship that just manages to flee the Reign of Terror. The last passenger to board is a mysterious black woman...
Okay, the novel never lives up to the excitement of the opening and I wanted 'the incognita' to turn out to be Sir Thomas Bertram's mixed race child by one of his slaves in Antigua but it is incredibly fascinating. A whole other side to Jane Austen's world is here; the jolly determined working seamstresses, cruel rich women and predatory men - the sneer behind Wickham's charming smile. Don't read it because of the Austen connection - read it because Fanny Burney is yes at times like treading through mud - awful Johnsonian sentences and some hilarious gothick melodrama - but then you fall in and come across a precious brilliant bauble!