10 Facts About Evelina

Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World is a novel written by English author Fanny Burney and first published in 1778.

Novel opens with a distressed letter from Lady Howard to her longtime acquaintance, the Reverend Arthur Villars, in which she reports that Mme Duval, the grandmother of Villars' ward, Evelina Anville, intends to visit England to renew her acquaintance with her granddaughter Evelina.

Desperate to join the Mirvans on their trip to London, Evelina entreats her guardian to let her attend with them, promising that the visit will last only a few weeks.

Evelina's soon earns the attentions of two gentlemen: Lord Orville, a handsome and extremely eligible peer and pattern-card of modest, becoming behaviour; and Sir Clement Willoughby, a baronet with duplicitous intentions.

Evelina is in dreadful financial straits, is engaged in tracing his own obscure parentage, as well as recovering from his mother's sudden death and the discovery that his beloved is actually his sister.

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Slowly recuperating from her illness, Evelina agrees to accompany her neighbour, a sarcastically tempered widow named Mrs Selwyn, to the resort town of Clifton Heights, where she unwillingly attracts the attention of womanizer Lord Merton, on the eve of his marriage to Lord Orville's sister, Lady Louisa Larpent.

Aware of Lord Orville's arrival, Evelina tries to distance herself from him because of his impertinent letter, but his gentle manners work their spell until she is torn between attraction to him and belief in his past duplicity.

However, Evelina is distraught at the continuing gulf between herself and her father and the mystery surrounding his false daughter.

When he sees Evelina, he is horrified and guilt-stricken because she clearly resembles her mother, Caroline.

Evelina is able to ease his guilt with her repeated gentle pardons and the delivery of a letter written by her mother on her deathbed in which she forgives Sir John for his behaviour if he will remove her ignominy and acknowledge Evelina as his legitimate daughter.