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| Frances Burney by her cousin, Edward Francis Burney |
Most people know
who Jane Austen was. A mention of her most famous book, Pride and Prejudice, will probably conjure up the vivacious and
lively Elizabeth Bennet, and the rich and enigmatic Mr Darcy. Miss Austen’s
books, and life, have been made into so many movies that, chances are, you’ll
know what all her most famous books were about without even having read
them.
However, unless
you are an 18th century literature enthusiast, you probably don’t
know who Frances Burney was. The name ‘Evelina Anville’, won’t ring a bell;
neither will ‘Lord Orville’…but I think it’s safe to say, that without them,
the world would never have been introduced to Elizabeth and Mr Darcy. It’s not
even going too far to mention their influence on Charles Dickens.
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| A facsimile edition of Evelina from 1903 |
Evelina had a rather tumultuous
beginning. Its author, Frances Burney, was the daughter of Charles Burney, who
knew everyone there was to know in the higher circles of life. Frances had met
Doctor Johnson of the Dictionary, and, in relation to my last post,
WilliamBligh, who had sailed with her older brother alongside Captain Cook. She was
self-taught, literally. She read books compulsively, teaching herself grammar
and spelling; by the time she was ten, she was writing to keep herself company.
Her first attempt at a novel was
The
History of Caroline Evelyn, which she burned in its entirety when she was
fifteen.
Evelina, in many ways is the
daughter of the lost manuscript; Frances Burney was trying again, and the title
character, Evelina, was the daughter of the unfortunate Caroline.
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| Robinson Crusoe as imagined by N. C. Wyeth |
A hundred years of
English novels proceeded it. In the late 17
th century, novels were
thought of as shocking and crude; not fit for the better classes of people. Novels
were considered improper, and indeed, many of them were, but ever since Daniel
Defoe had fictionalized and romanticized
Alexander Selkirk’s four-year,self-imposed sojourn on a desert island in the form of
Robinson Crusoe in 1719, novels had taken England by storm. No
longer was reading for instruction; analogies like
Pilgrim’s Progress, from 1678, which taught as well as entertained,
were giving way to reading material that was meant for pure enjoyment.
When Frances
Burney was busy writing at the end of the 18
th century, there was
still a clash between lurid, graphic reading material like
Tom Jones of 1749
, or the later (and
disturbing) gothic novel,
The Monk of
1796 (satirized in
Northanger Abbey), and proper novels, like the books of manners that Jane Austen would eventually
pen. It was a risky business publishing a book, but Frances Burney persevered;
in 1778, her older brother managed to publish
Evelina for her under a pseudonym to public and critical
acclaim.
Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson
praised it highly; little did they know it was written by a shy, young women of
only twenty-six whom they both knew.
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A plate from A Rake's Progress by William Hogarth, showing
the 18th century for what it was: almost completely lacking in
the decorum and modesty that would become hallmarks of the
Victorian era
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Evelina is written in the form of
letters, exchanged between a seventeen-year-old girl on her first venture into
the great world, to her guardian, Reverend Villiers of Berry Hill. This was not
an uncommon way of writing novels in those days; Jane Austen wrote her first
novel,
Love and Friendship, in the
form of letters between 1783 and 1790. One of the first epistolary novels was
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His
Sister (yes, it’s every bit as bad as it sounds) written by Aphra Behn in the
1680s. Evelina bears some minor resemblances to this, and other earlier
novels, like those by Samuel Richardson, but is, in many ways, a very new and
different sort of book than had ever been written before.
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The Pantheon in London, modeled after its namesake in Rome,
was once one of the grandest assembly rooms in England |
The most important
aspect of Evelina, is its incredible realism. Unfortunately considered
long-winded and cumbersome by today’s standards, Evelina was revolutionary
in its day. Over a period of seven months, the letters meticulously describe aworld that is completely alien to us today. Though the eyes of the heroine, we
see London, hot, dirty…but terribly exciting. There are balls to visit,
gardens, Cox’s Museum, which was an array of elaborate mechanical devices.
Evelina writes, “They tell me that London is now in full splendour. Two
playhouses are open, – the Opera-house, – Ranelagh, – and the Pantheon. – You
see I have learned all their names.” When she goes to visit them, we find
out first-hand, what it’s like to sit in an 18th century box and
watch an 18th century opera.
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Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea were at their height when
public gardens were all the rage |
And of course, no
period romance would be complete without balls, and Evelina goes to her share
of them and has her share of misunderstandings when she accidentally breaks the
social codes; "[she is] A poor weak girl!” Lord Orville remarks
when asked his first impression of her ('weak' in this instance meaning 'weak-minded'). In this way, at least, Evelina isn’t
quite accessible to the modern reader. Frances Burney was writing for her time;
she didn’t realize that two hundred years after the fact, people would still be
reading her book. Word usage has changed and there are many other things taken for granted that her readers
would have known, such as realizing the full import (or the impossibility) of
an Earl proposing marriage to seemingly penniless (and possibly illegitimate)
young girl; this doesn’t detract from the story…it’s all the more interesting
for learning about how different it was to live then.
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The Colonnade at Hotwells, Bristol in 1788
by the Swiss artist Samuel Hieronymus Grimm
one of the locations for Evelina |
On the other hand,
Evelina is a very modern book. We still feel the emotions they felt then and
are delighted by the same things. Not only are the circumstances surprisingly
easy to relate to, but the language is modern. Contractions are scattered
liberally through the dialog and Miss Burney’s ease at writing dialect marks
her as a fore-runner of Charles Dickens. Many expressions which we still use
today are scattered throughout Evelina, such as ‘in a huff’, ‘sick of it’,
‘the man in the moon’, ‘putting in one's oar’, ‘point-blank’, ‘changing with
the tide’ and ‘thing-em-bob’. Even some of our prejudices can be dispelled;
women might not have had the vote in 1778, but they had a voice. Mrs. Selwyn,
an independent woman with a large fortune, regularly runs rings around the men
with her wit and intelligence. As Mrs. Selwyn says, “Come, gentlemen…why do
you hesitate? I am sure you cannot be afraid of a weak woman?”
We all know Shakespeare
had wit, but so did Fanny Burney. I don’t think any of Jane Austen’s books are
as laughter-inducing as Evelina. Partly because she was so young and
partly because she had a natural turn for humor, Frances Burney often turned
serious moments into comedy. There’s a pre-planned hold-up and mugging of
Evelina’s pretend-French grandmother by pretend-highway bandits and Sir Clement Willoughby, Burney’s hilarious and good-natured
villain, is always ready to be amusing. Even the near-perfect hero, Lord
Orville, on closer inspection, becomes a flawed, but humorous and kind-hearted
character.
Frances Burney went on to write other books, but the
spontaneity and light-heartedness of Evelina
set it apart. Yes, it deeply influenced Jane Austen and her much more famous
books, but Evelina can stand very
well on its own two feet. It marked a turning of the tide, the opening of the
door to a genre that we still can’t get enough of. It is tragic, then, that Evelina, and its author, are not better
known. They deserve to be.
Excerpt from Evelina:
THERE is to be no end to the troubles of last night. I have this moment,
between persuasion and laughter, gathered from Maria the most curious dialogue
that ever I heard. You will at first be startled at my vanity; but, my dear
Sir, have patience!
It must have passed while I was sitting with Mrs. Mirvan, in the
card-room. Maria was taking some refreshment, and saw Lord Orville advancing
for the same purpose himself; but he did not know her, though she immediately
recollected him. Presently after, a very gay-looking man, stepping hastily up
to him cried, "Why, my Lord, what have you done with your lovely
partner?"
"Nothing!” answered Lord Orville with a smile and a shrug.
"By Jove," cried the man, "she is the most beautiful
creature I ever saw in my life!"
Lord Orville, as he well might, laughed; but answered, "Yes, a
pretty modest-looking girl."
"O my Lord!" cried the madman, "she is an angel!"
“A silent one," returned he.
"Why ay, my Lord, how stands she as to that? She looks all
intelligence and expression."
"A poor weak girl!" answered Lord Orville, shaking his head.
I don’t know about
you, but there’s something about this excerpt that reminds me of a discussion
between Mr Bingly and Mr Darcy about Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and Mr Darcy’s comment, “[She is] not handsome
enough to tempt me.”
Since 2010, after leaving
her homeport in Seville, El Galeón Andalucía has been cruising around the world visiting various ports and
delighting hundreds of people. According to her crew members (there doesn't
seem to be a great deal of information online), she is a 95% accurate replica
of a Spanish treasure galleon from the 16th century. And happens to be the only
one of her kind in the world. 
I’ve had the chance to go
aboard several tall ships, but each new one always delights me as much as the
last. There are always slight differences in how things are done aboard, but in
essentials, they always have the same purpose. 
Today, the
ship is outfitted with a GPS system, but four hundred years ago, the chief form
of navigation was dead reckoning, where
the Captain, adding up the direction and speed of the ship (and with a little
bit of chance) ‘reckoned’ his position on an ill-drawn map. The Sextant, the next
revolution in navigation after the compass, was not due for invention for
another two hundred years. 
I was a bit disappointed with
what the ship was like below decks; instead of showing the sorts of cargo the
galleon would have been carrying in the sixteenth century, there was a mini
movie theater about the construction of the ship. Which was nice…but we didn’t
stay to see it. 
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