Riassunto
Riassunto di Evelina
A chi è rivolto
For readers who love social comedy, letters and diaries, and the world that Jane Austen later made her own. It also suits anyone curious about eighteenth century London.
Che cos’è questo libro
Evelina is a novel in letters, published without the author's name in 1778. It was written by Fanny Burney, then a young woman living in London, who wrote in secret and hid the work even from her father, the music historian Charles Burney. She wanted to show how a girl of seventeen, raised far from the city, copes when she first meets fashionable society. What she gives the reader is a lively, funny and often painful picture of London manners in the eighteenth century.
The heroine is Evelina Anville. She has grown up in the country under the care of an elderly clergyman, and she knows almost nothing of the world. Her birth is clouded, because her father has never acknowledged her. Over one season she goes to balls, theatres, pleasure gardens and the fashionable spa towns. Along the way she meets kind friends, vulgar relatives, smooth flatterers and cruel jokers. Most of the story is told in her own letters to her guardian, so you see each event through her honest and nervous eyes.
The book asks a plain question. How can a young woman with good sense, little money and no clear name find her place among people who judge by rank and show? Burney answers with comedy, sharp ears for the way people talk, and real feeling. Let us begin with the strange start of Evelina's life, which shapes everything that follows.
In questo riassunto
- 1A girl with no name to claimFree
- 2A first ball brings two very different men
- 3Madame Duval arrives to embarrass her
- 4Pleasure gardens hide real dangers
- 5Cruel jokes and a rough sea captain
- 6A poet in trouble and a letter that wounds
- 7Spa towns, a sharp tongue and an unresolved claim
- 8What the story is really about
- 9How a novel in letters works
Punto chiave 1 di 9
A girl with no name to claim
The story begins before Evelina enters it. Her mother, a beautiful young woman, was left in sad circumstances by her husband, Sir John Belmont. He married her in secret, then burned the record of the marriage and refused to admit it. She died soon after giving birth, and the child was taken in by the Reverend Arthur Villars, who had been her guardian too.
Villars brings the girl up at Berry Hill, a quiet village in Dorsetshire. He keeps her away from the world because he fears for her. He knows that a girl without a recognized father is easy to hurt or to use. She is known by the made-up name of Anville, taken from her mother's family name in a changed form.
There is another claimant on her future. Her grandmother, Madame Duval, is a woman of low origins with French manners who has long wanted to take charge of the girl. Villars distrusts her deeply, and the reader soon sees why. Her manners and her notions are as far from his gentle ones as they could be.
At seventeen Evelina has grown up good, quick and shy. Villars hesitates to let her leave, yet a family friend, Lady Howard, offers to take her to London for a season with her daughter and granddaughter. Villars gives way, with many warnings. His letters from this point are full of fatherly advice, and hers are full of wonder.
The set up matters because it gives the heroine a double weakness. She lacks worldly knowledge, and she lacks a name that others will respect. Every mistake she makes in a ballroom will carry more weight than it would for a girl of known family. Burney uses that tension to turn small social errors into real danger.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Evelina
What is Evelina about?
Evelina is about a country girl of seventeen who goes to London for a season. She meets fashionable people, embarrassing relatives and dangerous admirers, while she waits to learn whether her father will ever accept her as his daughter.
Why is Evelina written as letters?
Most of the novel is told in letters from Evelina to her guardian, Reverend Villars. This lets Burney show events as the heroine feels them, with her fears and mistakes, and it lets other voices speak in their own style.
Who is Lord Orville in Evelina?
Lord Orville is a polite and kind nobleman whom Evelina meets at her first ball. He treats her with respect, and she comes to admire him, though misunderstandings keep them apart for much of the book.
When was Evelina published and is it a true story?
Evelina came out in 1778, first without the author's name. It is fiction, but it draws on real London places and manners of the time, such as Vauxhall, Ranelagh and the spa at Bristol Hotwells.
Is Evelina hard to read?
No. The story is told in Evelina's own letters, so you hear her voice straight away, honest, nervous and full of wonder. Each scene is a short, clear event, like a ball or a night at Vauxhall, and the characters speak in lively, funny ways.