Cecilia is an heiress, but she can only keep her fortune if her husband will consent to take her surname. Fanny Burney's unusual love story and deft social satire was much admired on its first publication in 1782 for its subtle interweaving of comedy, humanity, and social analysis. Controversial in its time, this eighteenth-century novel seems entirely fresh in relation to late twentieth-century concerns.

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'scholarly edition ... a welcome addition to the roster of available eighteenth-century texts ... Scholars will undoubtedly prefer this edition of Cecilia for its textual accuracy and will appreciate the help that the various appendices and the annotation will give to students'

Elizabeth Brophy, College of New Rochelle, Eighteenth-Century Fiction

Peter Sabor is Professor of English at Queen's University, Ontario.

Margaret Anne Doody is Professor of English at Princeton.