Evelina

I have recently found a renewed interest in classical literature, in particular 18th-century one. Last weekend, I finished Frances Burney’s very delightful first epistolary novel Evelina, Or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (1778.) Evelina is an orphan raised in the countryside by the Reverend Mr. Villars. The book recounts her adventures as she discovers London, 18th-century British High Society, and love. Burney’s style is exhilarating as the plot progresses and Evelina meets with a series of characters, each one more colorful than the other

(a new found common and loud French grandmother whose language contrasts with that of the aristocrats she tries to imitate, a brutal captain who likes to play cruel practical jokes on his enmities, and a conceited libertine who stops at nothing to get our heroine’s favors, in contrast to his rival, Lord Orville, an epitome of chivalrous virtue.)

Burney’s book is witty and cheerful as she mocks at the class prejudices of her time. Her work intermingles in the most delightful way burlesque and sentimental episodes, vice and virtue, caricature and sentimentality, and brings in one oeuvre what painters such as Greuze and Hogarth have until then only depicted in parallel.

Evelina is truly a charming and enthralling work, which I recommend without hesitation to any fan of Jane Austen. In fact, readers will easily see the parallel between their works (including Austen’s reuse of the character Willoughby) and appreciate Burney’s influence on Austen’s oeuvre.

Une traduction française de cet ouvrage existe aux éditions José Corti, Domaine Romantique, 1991, sous le titre Evelina de Fanny Burney. ISBN: 2714304176. Bonne lecture!

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