The Wanderer Or Female Difficulties

Fanny Burney's _The Wanderer_, her last published book, is the best of all her works. The heroine is easy to love, and only a callous reader could not feel pity for her friendless situation. The basic premise is this: a young, elegant woman of obvious good breeding is suddenly forced to flee France for mysterious reasons. But she has lost all of her possessions during her crossing of the Channel,...more

Fanny Burney's _The Wanderer_, her last published book, is the best of all her works. The heroine is easy to love, and only a callous reader could not feel pity for her friendless situation. The basic premise is this: a young, elegant woman of obvious good breeding is suddenly forced to flee France for mysterious reasons. But she has lost all of her possessions during her crossing of the Channel, and she finds herself in England, friendless, penniless, and completely dependent on the charity of those around her. The crux of the novel is how she is able to get by under these circumstances. Her fortitude is uplifting, and her plight shows us the problems women had two centuries ago in merely obtaining a subsistence upon which to live. The plot gets more and more complex as we find out about the life of the Wanderer herself. We don't discover her name for the first time until the middle of the book! _The Wanderer_ is a truly engaging novel, and once read, it becomes clear why Fanny Burney was one of Jane Austen's favorite authors.   hide