 Popsugar Reading Challenge Category: A prompt from the 2015 Popsugar Reading Challenge (The first book by a famous author).
Evelina, Or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance Into the World, by Frances Burney. Frances Burney was one of the most popular authors of the late 18th century, but I'd never heard of her until I read Jane Austen's Bookshelf. I was expecting her work to be stuffy and moralizing, like Samuel Richardson's Pamela. or Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple. Considering Burney's influence on Austen, I should have known better. Evelina is entertaining, funny, and surprisingly relatable. Evelina is the daughter of a nobleman, but her mother died young, and her father denies their secret marriage and has never claimed Evelina. She is raised by a country clergyman, who allows her to visit London with some friends, with warnings about the dangers of the city. At her first London ball, Evelina is approached by an unpleasant man who asks her to dance. She politely (if falsely) claims she's already committed to dancing with someone else. The guy follows her around the whole evening, haranguing her with questions and generally making a pest of himself. I thought: wow, some things haven't changed in 250 years! The "gentleman," Sir Clement Willoughby, quickly becomes the bane of Evelina's existence, always popping up on her excursions and even insinuating himself with the family that's hosting her. He has a knack for weaponizing the rules of politeness against her: when he offers her a ride home in his coach, she can't refuse without appearing to accuse him of ill intent, which would be rude of her. But he does exactly what she'd feared, "accidentally" giving the coachman wrong directions so she's stuck alone with him. Not to worry: there's a much nicer gentleman, Lord Orville, around to give Evelina her happily-ever-after ending.
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