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Since the rise of mass publishing during the eighteenth century, readers have wanted to see a portrait of an author in order to associate their face with their work. Illustrated frontispieces to books are just one among many manifestations of this desire to give a material body and a face to the authors of fiction.
Author portraiture played an important role in the development of a true celebrity market. In her talk, Francesca Saggini will retrace the cultural and economic elements of visual authorship by taking Frances Burney as her case study. Francesca's journey of literary detection will find an amazing, and truly unexpected, conclusion in Surrey. Which face will Frances have? We will be all invited to take our pick from the gallery of pictures illustrating this talk.