Evelina
Frances Burney
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars
3.67
· 24 ratings · 512 pages · Published: 1778
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.
Tagged as:
- romance 4
- classics 3
- historical 3
- historical fiction 3
- epistolary 3
- literary fiction 3
- college/university 3
- coming of age 2
- industrial era 2
- georgian 2
- satire 2
- funny 2
- regency 2
- victorian 2
- drama 2
- comedy 1
- realistic 1
- social commentary 1
- spring 1
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- audiobook 3
- young adult 1
- book 1