Romance Burney, Frances: Evelina. v1, 4 May 2008

[HarryT]

Full title: "Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance Into the World".

First published in 1778, this is an "epistolary" novel (ie told in letters, rather than as a narrative), as was very common in early English novels. This novel was hugely influential for Jane Austen (the title of Austen's novel "Pride and Prejudice" comes from a scene in this book), and Austen adopted the same style of gentle satire on "high society" which is very much in evidence in Evelina.

Description from Amazon:

Frances Burney's first and most enduringly popular novel is a vivid, satirical, and seductive account of the pleasures and dangers of fashionable life in late eighteenth-century London. As she describes her heroine's entry into society, womanhood and, inevitably, love, Burney exposes the vulnerability of female innocence in an image-conscious and often cruel world where social snobbery and sexual aggression are played out in the public arenas of pleasure-gardens, theatre visits, and balls. But Evelina's innocence also makes her a shrewd commentator on the excesses and absurdities of manners and social ambitions - as well as attracting the attention of the eminently eligible Lord Orville. Evelina, comic and shrewd, is at once a guide to fashionable London, a satirical attack on the new consumerism, an investigation of women's position in the late eighteenth century, and a love story.

A fabulous book; very funny and well worth reading.

Enjoy!

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