Fanny Burney

authoritative text, contexts and contemporary reactions, criticism

Evelina, or, The history of a young lady's entrance into the world

Frances Burney

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. The new introduction and full notes to this edition help make this richness all the more readily available to a modern reader.

Evelina and Lord Orville are so cute omg 💌

Sophia McKeehan 

‘I do think, that whoever has once seen Miss Anville, must receive an impression never to be forgotten.’

Hannah Alexander 

Evelina

Novel Ideas

Molly M

A story of initiation into the ways of the world for a young, provincial girl, Evelina is both richly comic and gravely moral. It is at once a guide to fashionable London, a satirical attack on the new consumerism, an investigation of women's position in the late eighteeenth century, and a love story. The new introduction and full notes to this edition make this richness all the more readily available to a modern reader.

Evelina, or, The history of a young lady's entrance into the world authoritative text, contexts and contemporary reactions, criticism

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