Despite the firsts, penetrating gender and regional barriers, and serving the society for forty years, during a well-documented period of its history, details of her life and works are inadequately noticed.
A vague and inaccurate portrait of her life and works was given in references to her in Richard Dorson's history of the British folklorists (1968); J. C. Burne, a great nephew, drew on letters and recollections of her family for a "tactful biography" published in 1975.
In 1875 Burne became friendly with Georgina Frederica Jackson, who was collecting material for her Shropshire Word Book (1879) and its companion work with the provisional title of "Folk-lore Gleanings".
Jackson's demise led Burne to take over her material, adding her own collection of tales to produce Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings, her first major work.
She also promoted the importance of documenting the historical and regional context of the tales, and accounting for the substitution and changes in the characters and incidents of these; their influence by economic, local, and personal factors is indicated in her earliest works and developed in her later articles and essays.