Comic Collusion: Frances Burney's The Witlings and the Mentorship of Arthur Murphy

• Published in: Women's writing : the Elizabethan to Victorian period Vol. 28; no. 3; pp. 368 - 383
• Main Author: White, Willow
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 03.07.2021; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Arthur Murphy; Burney, Fanny (1752-1840); censorship; Dramatists; eighteenth century; Frances Burney; gender; laughing comedy; playwriting
• DOI: 10.1080/09699082.2020.1847823
• ISSN: 0969-9082

Although it has been well documented that novelist and aspiring playwright Frances Burney was encouraged by playwright Arthur Murphy as she wrote her first play The Witlings (1779), the significance of his influence has never been fully acknowledged. A previously unexamined manuscript by Burney of adapted scenes from Murphy's play All in the Wrong (1761), held by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, provides new evidence of Burney's interest in Murphy's comic style and the development of her own comic voice. This essay considers Murphy's mentorship of Burney through an analysis of her journals and letters, an examination of her adaptation of All in the Wrong, and a comparison of The Witlings and All in the Wrong. I demonstrate that while Burney was influenced by Murphy's preferred comic style of laughing comedy, she also deviated from the style's emphasis on sexual exploits and focused instead on the experiences and relationships of female characters.