Fanny Burney’s renowned epistolary novel is a satirical tale detailing a young woman’s journey through eighteenth-century London’s fashionable society. Evelina is an early example of romanticism, sensibility, and the novel of manners. Evelina Anville is a beautiful young woman who falls into the wrong circles after leaving her secluded home for the first time. The story takes place in both London and Hot Wells, Bristol, in a series of letters. Evelina encounters a host of memorable characters and is whisked away by romance, yet until her aristocratic father acknowledges her as his legitimate daughter, she will never be able to marry the man she truly loves. This sharp satire of high-society London captures the complexities of Georgian society, offering a vivid and entertaining portrait of eighteenth-century England life. Read & Co. Classics is proudly republishing this volume, written by Queen Charlotte’s Keeper of the Robes, Fanny Burney. This new edition features an author biography by Henry Gardiner Adams.
A work by turns hilarious and grim, Evelina tells the story of a young woman’s education in the ways of the world, vividly rendering life in eighteenth-century England. Raised by a pastor after her mother died and her father abandoned her, Evelina leaves the seclusion of the country for her first season out, encounters all manner of people–from prospective husbands to rakes to vulgar relatives–and endures all manner of trials before she achieves her final triumph. “Before Evelina,” W. D. Howells proclaimed, “the heart of girlhood had never been so fully opened in literature.” Samuel Johnson called Burney “a real wonder” and Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote, “We owe to [Burney], not only Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfield Park and The Absentee.”
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