Frances Burney (June 13, 1752 – January 6, 1840), also known as Fanny Burney and after her marriage as Madame d'Arblay, is an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright.

She was born in Lynn Regis, now King's Lynn, England, on June 13, 1752, to the musician and music historian Dr Charles Burney (1726–1814) and his first wife, Esther Sleepe Burney (1725–1762).

The third of six children, she is self-educated and begins writing what she called her "scribblings" at the age of ten.

In 1793, aged forty-one, she marries a French exile, General Alexandre D'Arblay.

Their only son, Alexander, is born in 1794.

After a lengthy writing career, and travels during which she is stranded in France by warfare for more than ten years, she settles in Bath, England, where she dies on January 6, 1840.