Evelina: or The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World (Penguin Classics)

by Frances Burney, Margaret Anne Doody

Description

[ Edition: Reprint ]. Good Condition. Publisher: Penguin Classics Pub Date: 11/1/1994 Binding: Paperback Pages: 560 [ No Hassle 30 Day Returns ][ Ships Daily ] [ Underlining/Highlighting: SOME ] [ Writing: NONE ] [ Torn pages: NO ] [ Broken Seams: NO ]

Book summary

Fanny Burney's lighthearted first novel, completed after nine years of secret labor, was published anonymously in January 1778. Before the end of that year, it had gone through four editions--a huge popular success. In Burney's own words, it is the story, written in letters, of a young woman "of obscure birth, but conspicuous beauty," who "makes, at the age of seventeen, her first appearance upon the great and busy stage of life; with a virtuous mind, a cultivated understanding, and a feeling heart, her ignorance of the forms, and inexperience in the manners of the world, occasion all the little incidents which these volumes record." As a chronicle of life in 18th-century England, EVELINA is incomparable, Burney's heroine is a lovable (and unerringly perfect!) young woman, and the entire novel is leavened by its author's sharp satirical eye.