Evelina (1778)

Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World is a novel written by English author Frances Burney and first published in 1778. Although published anonymously, its authorship was revealed by the poet George Huddesford in what Burney called a "vile poem".

In this 3-volume epistolary novel, title character Evelina is the unacknowledged but legitimate daughter of a dissipated English aristocrat, and 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 English society and come under the eye of a distinguished nobleman with whom a romantic relationship is formed in the latter part of the novel. 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.

Plot summary

The novel opens with a distressed letter from Lady Howard to her longtime acquaintance, the Reverend Arthur Villars, in which she reports that Madame (Mme) Duval, the grandmother of Villars' ward, Evelina Anville, intends to visit England to renew her acquaintance with her granddaughter Evelina. Eighteen years earlier, Mme Duval had broken off her relationship with her daughter Caroline, Evelina's mother, but never knew of the birth or even existence of Evelina until Evelina was in her late teens. Upon this discovery, Mme Duval desires to reclaim Evelina and whisk her away to France as her closest blood relation. Reverend Villars fears Mme Duval's influence could lead Evelina to a fate similar to that of her mother Caroline, who secretly wedded Sir John Belmont, a libertine, who afterwards denied the marriage. To keep Evelina from Mme Duval, the Reverend lets her visit Howard Grove, Lady Howard's home, on an extended holiday. While she is there, the family learns that Lady Howard's son-in-law, naval officer Captain Mirvan, is returning to England after a seven-year absence. Desperate to join the Mirvans on their trip to London, Evelina entreats her guardian to let her attend with them, promising that the visit will last only one week. Villars reluctantly consents.

In London, Evelina's beauty and ambiguous social status attract unwanted attention and unkind speculation. Ignorant of the conventions and behaviours of 18th-century London society, she makes a series of humiliating (but humorous) faux pas that further expose her to social ridicule. She soon earns the attentions of two gentlemen: Lord Orville, a handsome and extremely eligible peer and pattern-card of modest, becoming behaviour; and Sir Clement Willoughby, a baronet with duplicitous intentions. Evelina's untimely reunion in London with her grandmother and the Branghtons, her long-unknown extended family, along with the embarrassment their boorish, social-climbing antics cause, soon convince Evelina that Lord Orville is completely out of reach.

The Mirvans finally return to the country, taking Evelina and Mme Duval with them. Spurred by Evelina's greedy cousins, Mme Duval concocts a plan to sue Sir John Belmont, Evelina's father, and force him to recognize his daughter's claim to his estate in court. Reverend Villars is displeased, and they decide against a lawsuit, but Lady Howard still writes to Sir John Belmont, who responds unfavourably. He does not believe it possible for Evelina to be his daughter, as he already has a young lady who is his supposed daughter (who, unbeknownst to him is actually illegitimate), and therefore assumes Mme Duval to be trying to dupe him for his money.

Mme Duval is furious and threatens to rush Evelina back to Paris to pursue the lawsuit. A second compromise sees Evelina return to London with her grandmother, where she is forced to spend time with her ill-bred Branghton cousins and their rowdy friends, but she is distracted by Mr. Macartney, a melancholy and direly-poor Scottish poet. Finding him with a pair of pistols, she supposed him to be considering suicide and bids him to look to his salvation; later he informs her that he has been contemplating not only self-destruction but more-so highway robbery. He is in dreadful financial straits, is engaged in tracing his own obscure parentage, as well as recovering from his mother's sudden death and the discovery that his beloved is actually his sister. Evelina charitably gives him her purse. Otherwise, her time with the Branghtons is uniformly mortifying: during her visit to the Marylebone pleasure garden, for instance, she is attacked by a drunken sailor and accosted by several rowdy men before being rescued by prostitutes—and in this humiliating company, she meets Lord Orville again. Sure that he can never respect her now, she is stunned when he seeks her out in London's unfashionable section and seems interested in renewing their acquaintance. When an insulting and brash letter supposedly from Lord Orville devastates her and makes her believe she misperceived him, she returns home to Berry Hill and falls ill.

Slowly recuperating from her illness, Evelina agrees to accompany her neighbour, a sarcastically tempered widow named Mrs. Selwyn, to the resort town of Clifton Heights, where she unwillingly attracts the attention of womanizer Lord Merton, on the eve of his marriage to Lord Orville's sister, Lady Louisa Larpent. Aware of Lord Orville's arrival, Evelina tries to distance herself from him because of his impertinent letter, but his gentle manners work their spell until she is torn between attraction to him and belief in his past duplicity.

The unexpected appearance of Mr. Macartney reveals an unexpected streak of jealousy in the seemingly imperturbable Lord Orville. Convinced that Macartney is a rival for Evelina's affections, Lord Orville withdraws. However, Macartney has intended only to repay his financial debt to Evelina.