Product Description

'Lord Orville did me the honour to hand me to the coach, talking all the way of the honour I had done him! O these fashionable people!' 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13951 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Customer Reviews

Breezier and bawdier than Austen
Fanny Burney is often unfavourably compared to Jane Austen which I think is very unfair. In Evelina, some of the similarities are more prominent than in her other books (in terms of plot and milieu, at least) but I don't think it's helpful to approach this expecting another Pride & Prejudice.

Evelina has a tangled family history full of eloped marriages and abandonments: brought up by her clergy-man godfather, she has lived a sheltered life in the country until a family friend invites her to stay and Evelina makes her unexpected debut in London. There she send all the young men into a spin, and encounters her French grandmother who has plans of her own.

This is written in epistolary mode, with the majority of the letters being Evelina's own account of her doings. Burney is far bawdier that Austen and reminds me a little of Fielding, with Evelina as a more moral Tom Jones let loose on the big world with all her innocence. Her French grandmother, in particular, is a wonderful character with her bad English and her dodgy manners; as is the father of Evelina's best friend, who is one of the rudest men in literature.

We know there's going to be a happy ending from the start and there are no twists in the romance plot. But for something far breezier and bracing than Austen (who I love) this is highly recommended.

An unexpected favourite
I picked this up at a second hand bookshop for next to nothing as something to read along my commute. Having expected to find it an inferior version of an Austen, I was pleasantly surprised by Burney's debut novel and will certainly be moving on to Camilla. Although Evelina can be a frustrating heroine at times (for a large part of the novel she comes across as a bit wet, but perhaps that's my fault for comparing her to the likes of Elisabeth Bennett - which is a somewhat unfair comparison) and generate some eye-rolling, she does provide a fascinating insight into Regency manners and courtship. As the previous reviewer points out, this is a lot bawdier and more realistic than Austen. As an Austen fan this can take some getting used to, as can the epistolary style, but once the reader gets used to the style and into the story it just gets better and better.

A new favourite on my bookshelf...I only hope the BBC sees its merits and puts together a good old fashioned Sunday evening drama series soon!