Evelina (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Burney, Frances

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199536937 ISBN 13: 9780199536931

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Frances Burney's first and most enduringly popular novel is a vivid, satirical, and seductive account of the pleasures and dangers of fashionable life in late eighteenth-century London. 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.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

About this title

From the Publisher

The Broadview Literary Texts series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, though lesser-known literature

From the Inside Flap

A work by turns hilarious and grim, Evelina tells the story of a young woman's education in the ways of the world, vividly rendering life in eighteenth-century England. Raised by a pastor after her mother died and her father abandoned her, Evelina leaves the seclusion of the country for her first season out, encounters all manner of people–from prospective husbands to rakes to vulgar relatives–and endures all manner of trials before she achieves her final triumph.

"Before Evelina," W. D. Howells proclaimed, "the heart of girlhood had never been so fully opened in literature." Samuel Johnson called Burney "a real wonder" and Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote, "We owe to [Burney], not only Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfield Park and The Absentee."

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0199536937
• ISBN 13: 9780199536931
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 512
• Editor: Bloom Edward A.