Yet she had never been touched by the fires of the heart. The handsome dashing Earl of Wetherby was supremely well-versed in the pleasures of love. Yet even the most exquisitely enchanting of his partners in passion had left him unmoved. The reserved Rosamund and the rakish Earl had a great deal to teach each other - if only they could persuade the other to learn...

    

    Yet she loyally agreed to her sister Desiree's latest scheme and pretended to be in love with the dashing Duke of Ravenworth--spoiling their mother's matchmaking ploy and leaving Desiree free to pursue her own true love.It began as a charade. After all, Delicia considered herself well past marriageable age. She never thought she was a candidate for love ... until she suddenly realized that she was no longer playacting. The game would soon be over--and she had fallen in love with her make-believe suitor....

    Like her novel, the journals and letters of this period reveal her artistic powers, as she continues to sketch characters with economy and precision and create convincing narratives out of the events of her life. Among the more memorable figures she meets at her father's London house are the "noble savage" Omai, the first Tahitian brought back to England; the famed explorer James "Abyssinian" Bruce, who returned from Africa with tales of natives who ate raw flesh; and Prince Aleksei Orlov of Russia, who had Czar Peter III murdered in order to permit Peter's wife, Catherine "the Great," to ascend the throne. Other notable figures include Dr Samuel Johnson and the great singer Lucrezia Agujari, admired by Mozart. Also in these pages, the usually diffident Miss Burney takes charge of her destiny by rebuffing her suitor Thomas Barlow, who has wealth, education, good looks, and the vehement approval of most of her family, but whom she finds a total bore. The journals and letters of Fanny Burney are an invaluable source for anyone interested in the social and literary history of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England. Lars Troide has supported the texts with thorough and detailed annotations.