Since reading Evelina as a teenager Eleanor Crouch has
been an enthusiast for Burney's fiction and the ideas it contains.
She was able to further explore this passion at Durham University,
writing her undergraduate dissertation on Burney's second novel,
Cecilia, arguing for its status as a sentimental novel.
Her masters in Philosophy, also at Durham, enabled her to explore
the ideas prevalent in the eighteenth century in more depth,
knowledge she has brought to bear on her current project, a
doctorate at Anglia Ruskin University which explores the novels and
plays of Fanny Burney in relation to feeling.