Historic Girlhoods, Part OneHolland, Rupert Sargent
History
Historic Girlhoods, Part One
Holland, Rupert Sargent
Women -- Biography -- Juvenile literature
When her father's History of Music appeared in print it made a great
success, and this stirred the youthful Fanny with the desire to see
what London would think of "Evelina." She was determined, however, to
keep its authorship unknown, and so she carefully recopied the
manuscript in an assumed handwriting in order that no publisher or
printer who had seen her handwriting in any of the manuscripts she had
copied for her father should recognize the same hand in this. But
"Evelina" had grown to be a very long novel, and by the time she had
copied out two volumes of it she grew tired, and so she wrote a letter,
without any signature, to a publisher, offering to send him the
completed part of her novel at once, and the rest of it during the next
year. This publisher replied that he would not consider the book unless
he were told the author's name. Fanny showed the letter to Susan, and
they talked it over, but decided that she ought not to send her name.
She then wrote to another publisher, making the same offer as she had
made to the first. He said he would like to see the manuscript.
Thereupon Fanny decided to take her brother Charles into the secret and
have him carry the work to the publisher. Charles agreed, and Fanny and
Susan muffled him up in a greatcoat so that he looked much older than
he was, and sent him off. He was not recognized, and when he called
later for an answer he was told that the publisher was pleased with the
book, but could not agree to print it until he should receive the whole
story. That discouraged Fanny, and she let the book lie by for some
time, but finally plucked up courage, and copied out the third volume.
In the meantime Fanny began to wonder if it would be fair for her to
publish a novel without telling her father, and she decided she ought
to go to him. She caught him just as he was leaving home on a trip, and
said, with many blushes and much confusion, that she had written a
little story and wanted to have it printed without giving her name. She
added that she would not bother him with the manuscript in any way and
begged that he wouldn't ask to see it. The Doctor was very much amused
as well as surprised, and he told her to go ahead and see what would
come of the story.
Better satisfied now that she had her father's consent Fanny sent the
third volume to the publisher, who accepted the book and paid her
twenty pounds for it.
[Illustration: FANNY BURNEY]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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