Classic novel, first published in 1796. According to Wikipedia: "Frances Burney (13 June 1752 – 6 January 1840), also known as Fanny Burney and, after her marriage, as Madame d'Arblay, was an English novelist, diarist and playwright... In total, she wrote four novels, eight plays, one biography and twenty volumes of journals and letters. In addition to the critical respect she receives for her own writing, she is recognised as a literary precursor to prominent authors who came after her, including Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray... All of Burney's novels explore the lives of English aristocrats, and satirise their social pretensions and personal foibles, with an eye to larger questions such as the politics of female identity."