Evelina: “this species of writing […] saved from contempt, and rescued from depravity”

1/ Now that I have got acquainted with the fathers of the English novel (Richardson and Fielding), it’s natural that I get to know the mother (Frances Burney, or Fanny Burney). She’s of particular interest to me also because of her influence on Jane Austen. 

Let’s look at the timeline: 

1740: Richardson’s Pamela 

1741: Fielding’s Shamela (parody of Pamela, published under a pseudonym) 

1742: Fielding’s Joseph Andrews 

1748: Richardson’s Clarissa (I know it’s important and will have to read it at some point, but 970,000 words? War and Peace is not even 600,000 words in English) 

1749: Fielding’s Tom Jones (his masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the 18th century—I will definitely read it) 

1759-1767: Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (I tried this once—will try again when I’m more used to 18th century’s English) 

1778: Burney’s Evelina (first published anonymously but soon acknowledged)

1782: Choderlos de Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons 

1791: Cao Xueqin’s Hong lou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone) 

1811: Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (the first draft, titled Elinor and Marianne, was written around 1795 and in the epistolary form)

1813: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (originally titled First Impressions, written around 1796-1797) 

2/ The quote in the headline comes from Frances Burney’s Preface: 

“In the republic of letters, there is no member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his brethren of the quill, as the humble Novelist; nor is his fate less hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers, perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous but less respectable.

Yet, while in the annals of those few of our predecessors, to whom this species of writing is indebted for being saved from contempt, and rescued from depravity, we can trace such names as Rousseau, Johnson, Marivaux, Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, no man need blush at starting from the same post, though many, nay, most men, may sigh at finding themselves distanced.”

She also wrote: 

“… however I may feel myself enlightened by the knowledge of Johnson, charmed with the eloquence of Rousseau, softened by the pathetic powers of Richardson, and exhilarated by the wit of Fielding, and humour of Smollett, I yet presume not to attempt pursuing the same ground which they have tracked; whence, though they may have cleared the weeds, they have also culled the flowers; and, though they have rendered the path plain, they have left it barren.”

I will return to these lines when I have finished reading Evelina. But I will say that the innocent, inexperienced, rather sheltered and awkward Evelina is much livelier and more likeable than Richardson’s virtuous Pamela and Fielding’s beautiful Fanny Goodwill. Fanny Goodwill is no more than a cardboard cutout, from the beginning to the end a damsel in distress. Pamela is exceedingly irritating, a Mary Sue who constantly faints. I know you’re going to mumble that Richardson’s and Fielding’s masterpieces are something else, but all these three novels I’m comparing are first novels—Frances Burney was 26 when she got Evelina published. 

3/ Frances Burney’s influence on Jane Austen is quite obvious. Look at this passage, for example: 

“His conversation was sensible and spirited; his air, and address were open and noble; his manners gentle, attentive, and infinitely engaging; his person is all elegance, and his countenance the most animated and expressive I have ever seen.” (Vol.1, Letter 11) 

Does that not sound like something one might come across in Jane Austen? I didn’t think “That sounds like Jane Austen” when I was reading Fielding or Richardson, but now with Burney, I sometimes do. 

Evelina is lively and spirited, highly adept at capturing people’s voices and conversations. 

““I am gone, Madam, I am gone!” with a most tragical air; and he marched away at a quick pace, out of sight in a moment; but before I had time to congratulate myself, he was again at my elbow.” (Vol.1, Letter 13) 

Like Austen, Frances Burney is wickedly funny. 

When Tom (Wuthering Expectations) was reading Evelina a few years ago, he noted: 

“For its first few pages, Evelina looks like an epistolary novel, like a Samuel Richardson novel.  “I am, dear Sir, with great regard” (Letter I) etc. 

[…] Evelina herself finally takes over in Letter VIII (only twelve pages into my Norton edition – now there’s a difference from Richardson – shorter letters) and the rhetorical mode changes, quickly, until the letters do not sound much like letters at all.  They are full of scenes, dialogue, characters, jokes, the usual novelistic stuff.  Maybe like a journal, but not really.  More like, you know, a novel. 

[…] One of Burney’s innovations is to merely gesture toward the conventions of the epistolary novel, keeping the interiority and moral reflection but dumping most of the rest of the epistolarity, unless she wants it for plotty reasons.” 

As an epistolary novel, Pamela is quite awkward—it starts as a correspondence and then becomes a journal because Pamela is detained by her lustful employer and cannot send letters—compared to Dangerous Liaisons, it doesn’t quite have the perfect construction (after all, Richardson was trying something new) and the realism (where does Pamela find the time to write all this stuff? and in secret?). But Tom is right that Evelina is even less of an epistolary novel than Pamela—it is indeed full of scenes, dialogue, characters, the novelistic stuff—I would probably say that Evelina is like a bridge between epistolary novels and Jane Austen’s comedies of manners.