Frances Burney and Female Friendships : Some Notes on "Cecilia" (1783) y "The Wanderer" (1814)

British eighteenth-century fiction is rich in presentations of female friendship, a literary convention which permeated all genres and the works of women writers with different ideological backgrounds, ranging from Mary Wollstonecraft’s radical views to Jane Austen’s conservative ones. This paper analyses the oeuvre of the well-known novelist, playwright and diarist Frances Burney (1752-1840) by taking into account Janet Todd’s ideas on female ties and the female spectrum in Burney’s productions. The English authoress took part in a feminist polemic. Here I maintain that the complexity of the relationships between women in Cecilia (1782) and The Wanderer (1814) is directly influenced by class and social constraints. On the other hand, there is an evolution towards a more benevolent view of woman which needs revision.