The Letter

In I911, the English author, Fanny Burney had discovered an increasingly painful lump in her breast. On the 30th of September that year when the condition had worsened Fanny was operated on without anaesthetic. This biographical film is based on the letter Fanny wrote just 3 months after her ordeal to her sister Ester (now housed in the New York Public Library). The letter was the means for Burney to record her experience, describing the medical procedure, the Victorian surgical methods and her pain. Burney wrote the letter as an ‘open stream of consciousness’ so that she didn’t re-edit, re-write and therefore re-live the experience of her ordeal. The medical drawings and original sketches were supplied by the History of Medicine Library, Royal Australian College of Physicians and help illustrate a medical practise that has developed so much since the Victorian Era. Stars Skye Wansey as Fanny Burney and Rachael Blake as voice of Fanny.