Evelina
Evelina is the story of a beautiful, young, sweet-natured, trusting girl brought up in the country by a doting, vicar guardian, the Rev. Mr. Villars.
Very reluctantly, when Evelina is 17, Mr Villars allows her to go to London for a few weeks of The Season with Mrs Mirvan and her daughter. Evelina is enchanting and attracts many a young man but being ignorant of the ways of the world, she gets into endless awkward situations.
She is pursued by a rake, Sir Clement Willoughby, but is rescued by Lord Orville. She meets up with her extremely vulgar grandmother Madame Duval, over from Paris and her equally vulgar cousins, the Brangtons. The story is told by Evelina in letters to Rev. Villars.
Fanny, the “observer” had always taken a keen interest in other people’s love affairs as well as conversations or remarks overheard and jotted down in her journal. So she had all the material for a novel which she started writing surreptitiously.
“We pass our Time here very serenely, and distant as you may think us from the Great World, I some times, find myself in the midst of it, – though nobody suspects the brilliancy of the Company I occasionally keep…” This “Company” was her characters from Evelina; Lord Orville, Captain Mirvan, Madame Duval etc.
She was excited by the story and the characters she was developing and wanted to publish it for her “own indulgence” she says to her sister Susan who was one of the very few let into the secret. But she was afraid of the censure placed on women writers, to say nothing of her father’s disapproval so she had to get the assistance of her brothers and her cousin to front her negotiations with a publisher.
So on December 25-26 1776 she writes to Thomas Lowndes, a bookseller in Fleet Street ostensibly from Mr King at the Orange Coffee House to say that he has possession of a manuscript of a novel and wishes to have the 2 first volumes printed immediately. Mr Lowndes’ response encourages her to send the manuscript of the first volume describing it as “the Introduction of a well educated, but inexperienced young woman into public company, and a round of the most fashionable Spring Diversions of London…”
This was the handwriting in which Fanny copied all Evelina to have her own unseen
The Publishing Process
“When with infinite toil and labour, I had transcribed [in a feigned hand] the second Volume [of my new Essay], I sent it by my brother Charles to Mr. Lowndes. The fear of discovery, or of suspicion in the house, made the copying extremely laborious to me; for in the day time, I could only take odd moments, so that I was obliged to sit up the greatest part of many nights, in order to get it ready. And, after all this fagging, Mr. Lowndes sent me word, that he approved of the book; but could not think of printing it, till it was finished; that it would be a great disadvantage to it, and that he would wait my time, and hoped to see it again, as soon as it was completed.
Now, this man, knowing nothing of my situation, supposed, in all probability, that I could seat myself quietly at my bureau, and write on with all expedition and ease, till the work was finished. But so different was the case, that I had hardly time to write half a page in a day; and neither my health nor inclination would allow me to continue my nocturnal scribbling for so long a time, as to write first, and then copy, a whole volume. I was therefore obliged to give the attempt and affair entirely over for the present.”
Negotiations continued between Mr Lowndes and her brother Charles and later her cousin Edward. The book was published anonymously in January 1778 and was an immediate success.
-A Letter from Fanny to Susan 1777
“I had written my little Book simply for my amusement; I printed it, by the means first of my Brother, Charles, next of my Cousin, Edward Burney, merely for a frolic, to see how a production of my own would figure in that Author like form: but as I had never read any thing I had written to any human being but my sisters, I had taken it for granted that They, only, could be partial enough to endure my compositions. My unlooked for success surprized, therefore, my Father as much as my self.”
It must have surprised her father, who knew nothing of her authorship and only learned about the book from the general gossip among Mrs Thrale and her friends. On 23 June 1778 her Journal records a visit from her father who said
“I have read your Book, Fanny – but you need not blush at it. – It is full of merit – it is really extraordinary.”
It must have amazed him to read the coarse, vulgar, strident language of Captain Mirvan, the reposts of Madam Duval, and the appalling behaviour of Sir Clement Willoughby all being recounted by the prim and innocent Evelina to her dearest clergyman guardian living in obscurity in a small country village. When her father proposes telling Mrs Thrale she exclaims:
“But – if you do tell Mrs Thrale, – won’t she think it very strange where I can have kept Company, to draw such a family as the Branghtons, Mr Brown and some others? – Indeed, (thank heaven) I don’t myself recollect ever passing half an Hour at a Time with any one person quite so bad.”
Seven years later when Fanny met King George III for the first time, the King was particularly concerned to know why she hadn’t told her father. The King had met her father and said:
“I shall never forget his face when he spoke of his feelings at first taking up the Book! – he looked quite frightened – just as if he was doing it that moment! –I never can forget his face while I live!
Then returning to me again, he said But your Father – how came you not to shew him what you wrote?
I was too much ashamed of it, sir, seriously…I only wrote, sir, for my own amusement:- only in some odd, idle Hours-
But your publishing – your printing – how was that? continued the King…how did you get it printed??
I sent it, sir, to a Bookseller my Father never employed, and that I never had seen myself, Mr Lowndes, in full hope by that means he never would hear of it.
But how could you manage that?
By means of a brother, sir
O – you confided in a Brother, then.
Yes, sir, that is for the publication.
But how was it you thought most likely for your Father to discover you?
..I have supposed I must have dropt some of the manuscript; sometimes, that one of my sisters betrayed me.
O, – your sister? -what, not your Brother?…You think your Brother could keep your secret, and not your sister!
..how was it first known to You you were betrayed?
By a Letter, sir, from a sister; I was very ill, and in the country ; and she wrote me word that my Father had taken up a Review, in which the Book was mentioned, and had put his finger upon its name, and said – contrive to get that Book for me. –”
Evelina’s Reception in the World
Monthly Review. April 1778
Evelina, or a young Lady’s Entrance into the World: This novel has given us so much pleasure in the perusal, that we do not hesitate to pronounce it one of the most sprightly, entertaining & agreeable productions of this kind that has of late fallen under our Notice. A great variety of natural Incidents, some, of the Comic stamp, render the Narrative extremely interesting. The Characters, which are agreeably diversified, are conceived & drawn with propriety, & supported with spirit. The Whole is written with great ease & Command of Language. From this commendation we must, however, except the Character of a son of Neptune, whose manners are rather those of a rough, uneducated Country ‘squire’, than those of a genuine sea Captain. (Captain Mirvan)
Her cousin Richard Burney from Worcester who was not in on the secret is quoted in her Journal as saying “I like that Book better & Better; I have read nothing like it since Fielding’s Novels…I think I can’t read it too often, – for you are to know I think it very edifying. The two principal Characters, Lord Orville and Mr Villars, are so excellent! -and there is something in the Character, & manners, of Lord Orville so refined, & so polite – that I never saw the like in any Book before: & all his Compliments are so new, – as well as elegant –”
When he was let into the secret, he went down on his knees before Fanny.
In July, Fanny receives a letter from her sister, Susan enclosing one from the publisher, Lowndes, telling her that the whole impression will be sold by Christmas. He says that “the Great World send here to buy Evelina”. Fanny exclaims to Susan:
“Good God! My dear Susy! – what a wonderful affair has this been! – & how extraordinary is this torrent of success, which sweeps down all before it! – I often think it too much, nay, almost wish it happened to some other person…But tho’ it might have been better bestowed, it could by no one be more gratefully received.
Indeed, I can’t help being grave upon the subject, for a success so prodigious & so really unexpected, almost over powers me. I wonder at myself, that my spirits are not more elated..”
Dr Burney asks permission to reveal the secret of her authorship to his wife and Mrs Thrale and in giving her permission Fanny allows him to “consult only his own opinion in future…though to all others, however loved or esteemed, I have insisted upon a most solemn promise, nay oath, never to divulge it without my leave.”
Once it was known that Fanny was the author of Evelina, her life changed and she became a celebrity taken up by the literary and social world.
NOTE; A superb audio version of the book is available with Judi Dench, Geoffrey Palmer and Finty Williams who speaks Evelina’s letters in the most girlish, innocent way while the subject is extraordinarily vulgar and brutal. I laughed and laughed at the irony.