Review: Evelina, by Frances Burney

Review: Evelina, by Frances Burney

by Rich Horton

Frances Burney (1752-1840) was the daughter of Charles Burney, a musician, composer, and writer. She was a writer from a very early age, and eventually wrote novels, plays, a biography of her father, and diaries. She also had a rather remarkable personal life -- for example, "Keeper of the Robes" for the Queen; a significant supporter of the French revolution (not the violence, but the political changes), married a French refugee, had a mastectomy -- without anesthesia! She wrote four novels, and several plays though only one was produced in her lifetime, besides her diaries, which when published posthumously were much admired, though now I think her novels are the foundation of her repuation. She was often called Fanny Burney; and Madame D'Arblay after her marriage.

Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World (1778) was Frances Burney's first published novel, though curiously it is a sequel. As a teenager Burney wrote a novel called Caroline Evelyn, about Evelina's mother. But at the age of 15 she burned all her early writing efforts, apparently out of doubt that it was proper for a woman to write for publication. Happily, she had changed her mind by her 20s, though she did bow to her father's wishes and did not seek public performance of any of her plays save one. The plays survived in manuscript, but her juvenilia obviously did not. So it's hard to say whether Caroline Evelyn was any good -- my guess is, probably not that good! -- or even how long it was. It was surely tragic, however, for at the beginning of Evelina we learn that the title character's mother was abandoned by her dissipated husband, Sir John Belmont, after she became pregnant, and that she died bearing Evelina, who has been raised to the age of 17 by her grandfather's close friend, the Reverend Arthur Villars.

Arthur Villars is a good if very morally conservative man, and has given Evelina an excellent education. She is a very beautiful young woman, very shy, and very moral. Mr. Villars only hopes to find her a good husband before he gets too old, and for her to have a happy life in the country. And he hopes to keep the secret of her birth a secret, for her father has long refused any contact, and has even refused to acknowledge that he was married to Caroline Evelyn. As the novel opens, he sends her to visit a close friend of his, Lady Howard, and eventually accedes to Evelina accompanying her friend, Lady Howard's granddaughter Miss Mirvan, to London. As Caroline Evelyn's rackety French mother (who had disowned Caroline and only recently learned of Evelina's existence) thinks Evelina is still with Mr. Villars, and Sir John Belmont is supposedly in France, there should be no trouble in the visit.

In London, Evelina and her friend go to a couple of social events, and Evelina creates something of a minor sensation with her great beauty. She is the object of unwelcome, and often quite rude, attention from various young men, including a foppish M.P., Mr. Loval; and a handsome Baronet with questionable manners, Sir Clement Willoughby. She also meets Lord Orville, a much more decent-seeming man, and dances with him. But trouble arrives when her Grandmother, Mme. Duval, tracks her down in London, and insists Evelina stay with her. This forces her to spend time with some exceedingly boorish social-climbing cousins, the Branghtons, who insist on her accompanying them to some much less savory places, where, indeed, Evelina is violently accosted by some young men. At last she manages to return to Lady Howard's, though in the mean time she has had further encounters with Sir Clement and with Lord Orville, as well as meeting a very sad young man named Mr. Macartney. Sir Clement makes more unwelcome advaances, while Lord Orville remains the perfect gentleman. But as she leaves London she sends Lord Orville a letter of thanks, and is shocked to receive an unpleasantly insinuating reply.

Now convinced that a life in the country is all she wants, she still must deal with Mme. Duval's importunities, which include a plan to sue Sir John Belmont to force him to acknowledge Evelina -- which would be fine in its way except that Mme. Duval hopes to marry her off to the loutish Tom Branghton. Captain Mirvan, meanwhile, Miss Mirvan's father, a very coarse Navy man, acts with absurd rudeness to Mme. Duval, as he hates all things French. After additional tribulations (some of them quite comic in the telling) Evelina returns to Mr. Villars, but having fallen ill is sent to Bristol to recover. And there again she encounters Sir Clement Willoughby and Lord Orville, along with some additional mostly comic characters, and over time finally gets to meet her real father, learn a secret of Mr. Macartney's, and resolve her issues with Lord Orville and with Sir Clement.

The novel is really very entertaining throughout. There is plenty of implausibility and coincidence, to be sure. Evelina's otherworldly beauty has long been a staple of romance novels, so it's hardly a surprise. Her virtue is so carefully held that at times one wishes she (and Mr. Villars) would be a bit more tolerant. Also, her dislike of causing too much of a fuss led me to wonder why she didn't give Sir Clement, or Tom Branghton, or any of a number of other men, a ringing slap from time to time. There are two threads to the novel, in a sense -- the love story, combined with the mystery of Evelina's birth (which ends up entangled with Mr. Macartney's story) is one; and the other is the lightly satrical and often quite funny observation of English social life. Both are interesting, though it's the satirical parts that make it special.