To whom, then, must I dedicate my wonderful, surprising and interesting adventures? to whom dare I reveal my private opinion of my nearest relations? the secret thoughts of my dearest friends? my own hopes, fears, reflections and dislikes? Nobody!

She returned to her father’s house in Chelsea but continued to receive a yearly pension of £100. Her sister Charlotte's remarriage in 1798 to the pamphleteer Ralph Broome caused her and her father consternation as did the move by her sister Susanna and penurious brother-in-law Molesworth Phillips and their family to Ireland in 1796. Frances and her sister Susanna were particularly close and it was to this sister that Frances would correspond throughout her adult life in the form of these journal-letters.

In 1793 aged forty-two Frances Burney married a French exile General Alexandre D'Arblay. After a lengthy writing career and travels that took her to France for more than ten years Frances Burney settled in Bath England where Frances Burney died on 6 January 1840.