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HUMANITIES 191 and Hector that reappear by a process of modulation in Martius, and to traits of Worcester, Bolingbroke, Achilles, and Octavius that resurface in Aufidius. Parker also illustrates how imaginatively and selectively Shakespeare drew upon North's Plutarch, altering, omitting, or adding details to enrich the characterization and produce a well-crafted dramatic structure. Finally, it is pleasant to note that although Parker conceives his task as editing a Coriolanus for the 1990s, opening himself sympathetically and without prejudice to a range of fresh ideas and approaches, he nevertheless presents his findings in a prose that is forceful and civilized, eschewing the barbarous jargon, the muddy syntax, the pretentious pseudo-philosophical abstractions, and the ideological tendentiousness that so often disfigure the formulations of contemporary Shakespearean discourse. We can be grateful for his considerable labours and rejoice in an edition of this magnificent Roman play worthy to take its place in a distinguished series. (CHARLES R. FORKER) Lars E. Iroide and Stewart J. Cooke, editors. The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney. Volume 3: The Streatham Years, Part 1, 1778-1779 McGill-Queen's University Press. xxii, 477. $70.00 cloth In this volume Lars Troide and Stewart Cooke begin the project of reediting the material selectively published by Burney's niece and literary executrix, Charlotte Barrett, in her Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay (1842-6). They were able to restore much material either obliterated by the aged author, or deleted or 'corrected' by Barrett, providing 35 per cent more text about an important year in Burney's life. This volume begins immediately following Evelina's publication. Burney anxiously details the praise she hears for her novel, enjoys speculations about whether it was written by a man or a woman, and worries about the gradually spreading knowledge of her authorship. Soon she is introduced to the Streatham circle and becomes something of a celebrity wit. The reader is treated to extensive descriptions of the people Burney meets in this period, many of whom have instantly recognizable names - Hester Lynch Thrale, Samuel Johnson, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Arthur Murphy, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Elizabeth Montagu, Richard Cumberland. Under pressure to write a comedy for the stage, Burney writes The Witlings, a play satirizing women with literary pretensions. Despite everyone else's approval of it, 'Daddy' Crisp and Charles Burney, worried that the play would offend the powerful bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu, jointly attack it and advise Burney not to produce it. Because of their response, a hurt and surprised Burney suppresses her work. This volume provides extensive anecdotal information about late 192 LETTERS IN CANADA 1994 eighteenth-century reading practices in Burney's detailing of her readers' responses to Evelina (often, for instance, readers would improvise upon their favourite character, as Mrs Cholmondeley does Madame Duval and Samuel Johnson does Mr Smith) which should make it of interest to those studying reception. It also acts as a counterpoint to such works as Hester Thrale's Thraliana and Boswell's account of Johnson, and gives wonderful descriptions of the famous and not-so-famous, along with accessible social-historical materiaL Furthermore, since bio-criticism is the most common mode of addressing Burney, the text recovered by Troide and Cooke is especially useful to literary scholars. Tracing the things the author later found inappropriate should be provocative (for instance, she obliterates passages in which others give her advice on revisions for the second edition of Evelina). On a wider levee however, the genesis and suppression of Burney's The Witlings can now receive a much more detailed analysis than it has previously, especially since the play has recently been separately edited and published by Clayton Delery and Katherine M. Rogers, and will be included in Peter Sabor's upcoming edition of Burney's complete plays. Because much of this volume was originally written by Burney as entertaining letter-journals recounting her new life, and was meant to be circulated among select members of her family and friends, it is in general more readable and less fragmentary than editions of letters or personal journals tend to be. This volume should be of considerable interest to biographers and literary or social historians alike. (SUSAN LAMB...

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