Evelina
or, A Young Lady's Entrance into the World. In a Series of Letters.
  • Publication Date: September 14, 2000
  • ISBN: 9781551112374 / 155111237X
  • 704 pages; 5½" x 8½"

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Evelina

or, A Young Lady's Entrance into the World. In a Series of Letters.

  • Publication Date: September 14, 2000
  • ISBN: 9781551112374 / 155111237X
  • 704 pages; 5½" x 8½"

The reputation of Frances Burney (1752-1840) was largely established with her first novel, Evelina. Published anonymously in 1778, it is an epistolary account of a sheltered young woman’s entrance into society and her experience of family. Its comedy ranges from the violent practical joking reminiscent of Smollett’s fiction to witty repartee that influenced Austen.

The Broadview edition is based on the second edition of the novel (1779), which incorporates Burney’s revisions and corrections. Its appendices include contemporary reviews of Evelina as well as eighteenth-century works on the family and on comedy.

Comments

“Longtime admirers of Frances Burney’s delightful eighteenth-century comedy of manners, Evelina, will no doubt rejoice in Broadview’s impressive new edition of the work, here ably introduced and annotated by Susan Kubica Howard. Readers new to the novel have a treat in store. Evelina remains, quite simply, the most accomplished and insouciant comic novel written by an Englishwoman before Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and coruscates anew in the handsome presentation it is given here.” — Terry Castle, Stanford University

“Susan Kubica Howard’s research is impressively detailed, yet accessibly presented so that the edition will serve both seasoned scholars in the field and readers who may be encountering Evelina for the first time.” — Audrey Bilger, Claremont McKenna College

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Frances Burney: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

Evelina

Introduction to Appendices

Appendix A: Contemporary Reviews

  1. London Review (February 1778)
  2. Monthly Review (April 1778)
  3. Westminster Magazine (June 1778)
  4. Gentleman’s Magazine (September
  5. Critical Review (September 1778)

Appendix B: Works on Family

  1. George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, The Lady’s New-Year’s-Gift
  2. William Fleetwood, The Relative Duties of Parents
    and Children, Husbands and Wives. Masters and
    Servants
  3. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, “Correspondence
    with her Granddaughter, Diana, Duchess of Bedford,
    1732-35”
  4. Samuel Richardson, Letters Written To and For Particular
    Friends, on the Most Important Occasions
  5. [John Hill], On the Management and Education of
    Children
  6. Samuel Richardson, A Collection of the Moral and
    Instructive Sentiments, Maxims, Cautions, and Reflexions,
    Contained in the Histories of PAMELA, CLARISSA, and SIR
    CHARLES GRANDISON
  7. James Nelson, An Essay on the Government of Children
  8. Eliza Haywood, The Female Spectator
  9. Lady Sarah Pennington, An Unfortunate Mother’s Advice
    to Her Absent Daughters
  10. “Portia” [pseud.], The Polite Lady
  11. Hester Mulso Chapone, Letters on the Improvement of
    the Mind
  12. Clara Reeve, Plans of Education
  13. Mrs. Bonhote, The Parental Monitor
  14. Thomas Gisborne, An Enquiry into the Duties of the
    Female Sex
  15. Maria Edgeworth and Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Practical Education
  16. Francis Burney D’Arblay, Memoirs of Doctor Burney

Appendix C: Works on Comedy

  1. Anon., Pasquil’s Jests, Mixed with Mother Bunches Merriments
  2. Joseph Addison, The Spectator
  3. Anon., Scoggin’s Jests
  4. [John Mottley], Joe Miller’s Jest Book
  5. [Corbyn Morris], An Essay Towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule
  6. Eliza Haywood, The Female Spectator
  7. Jane Collier, An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously
    Tormenting
  8. Christopher Anstey, The New Bath Guide
  9. [James Quin], Quin’s Jests
  10. Anon., An Essay on Laughter
  11. William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Comic Writers

Select Bibliography

Susan Kubica Howard is an associate professor of English at Duquesne University, and the editor of Charlotte Lennox’s The Life of Harriet Stuart, Written by Herself (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1995).