The terrible operation
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2025 8:31 am
In honour of Breast Cancer Awareness month, Kress Fellow Zoe Copeman introduces a contemporary source that Burney may have used to make sense of her diagnosis and the events that followed—a source accessible at the Warburg Institute.
If you have not yet encountered the British novelist Frances Burney (also known as “Fanny” or by her married name Madame d’Arblay), Virginia Woolf once called her "the mother of English fiction" and her work was said to have heavily influenced Jane Austen. Publishing her first novel anonymously in 1778 at the age of twenty-six, Burney was exalted in her time for gambling data korea her wit and vivid descriptions. Living in both Britain and France, her novels and diaries offer insight into the everyday social milieu of these nations.
Burney’s letter recounting her breast cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and cure is often discussed for its singularity as it provides a rare patient perspective for this period [2]. In an article for the Guardian, Jenni Murray classified Burney’s letter as “one of the most courageous pieces of work I’ve ever encountered” [3]. Though Burney’s operation was performed in 1811, it took her six months before she felt that she could revisit the procedure to inform her family and friends what had happened to her.
If you have not yet encountered the British novelist Frances Burney (also known as “Fanny” or by her married name Madame d’Arblay), Virginia Woolf once called her "the mother of English fiction" and her work was said to have heavily influenced Jane Austen. Publishing her first novel anonymously in 1778 at the age of twenty-six, Burney was exalted in her time for gambling data korea her wit and vivid descriptions. Living in both Britain and France, her novels and diaries offer insight into the everyday social milieu of these nations.
Burney’s letter recounting her breast cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and cure is often discussed for its singularity as it provides a rare patient perspective for this period [2]. In an article for the Guardian, Jenni Murray classified Burney’s letter as “one of the most courageous pieces of work I’ve ever encountered” [3]. Though Burney’s operation was performed in 1811, it took her six months before she felt that she could revisit the procedure to inform her family and friends what had happened to her.