Evelina

by Fanny Burney

Overview

In this 3-volume epistolary novel, title character Evelina is the unacknowledged but legitimate daughter of a dissipated English aristocrat, thus raised in rural seclusion until her 17th year. Through a series of humorous events that take place in London and the resort town of Hotwells, near Bristol, Evelina learns to navigate the complex layers of 18th-century society and earn the love of a distinguished nobleman. This sentimental novel, which has notions of sensibility and early romanticism, satirizes the society in which it is set and is a significant precursor to the work of Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth, whose novels explore many of the same issues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781627938969
Publisher:	Start Classics
Publication date:	12/01/2013
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	440
File size:	605 KB

About the Author

Frances "Fanny" Burney (1752 1840) was among the first and most influential of English women authors. The self-educated writer anonymously published" Evelina, " her first novel, in 1778. Burney's witty, satirical style had a significant effect on Jane Austen and William Thackeray, among others."

Table of Contents

About the Series
  About This Volume
  List of Illustrations
    
PART ONE: EVELINA: THE COMPLETE TEXT
    
  Introduction: Cultural and Historical Background
    
  Chronology of Burney's Life and Times
    
  A Note on the Text
    
  Evelina, or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World [First Edition, January 1778]
    
PART TWO: EVELINA: CULTURAL CONTEXTS
    
  1. The Young Lady
    For the Young Lady
       James Fordyce, "On the Importance of the Female Sex"
       Thomas Gisborne, "On the Mode of Introducing Young Women into General Society"
       Thomas Gisborne, "On the Employment of Time"
    By the Young Lady
       Frances Burney, An Unwanted Proposal of Marriage
       Frances Burney, Directions for Coughing and Sneezing before the King and Queen
    
  2. The Fashionable World
    Making Fashion
       Richard Campbell, From The London Tradesman
       Joseph Addison, On the Royal Exchange (The Spectator, No. 69)
       Joseph Addison, The Influence of French Fashions (TheSpectator, No. 45)
       Oliver Goldsmith, On London Shops (From The Citizen of the World)
       Henry Fielding, People of Fashion (From The Covent-Garden Journal)
    Placing Fashion
       Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, On the London Theatre, (From The Spectator, Nos. 240, 245, and 502)
       Anonymous, From A Sketch of the Spring-Gardens, Vaux-hall
       Oliver Goldsmith, On a Visit to Vauxhall Gardens (From The Citizen of the World)
       Tobias Smollett, On a Visit to Bath (From Humphry Clinker)
       Christopher Anstey, From The New Bath Guide
    
  3. Beyond the Fashionable World
    Visitors to London
       César de Saussure, From A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I and George II
       W. de Archenholtz, From A Picture of England
       Carl Phillip Moritz, From Travels, Chiefly on Foot, Through Several Parts of England, in 1782
       Thomas Campbell, From Dr. Campbell's Diary of a Visit to England in 1775
    Seafaring Men
       James Anthony Gardner, Voyages of a Seaman
       Edward Boscawen, Waging War against France
        Thomas Pasley, A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope
       Olaudah Equiano, Serving with the English Navy
    
  Selected Bibliography