Evelina, Frances Burney
Evelina, Frances Burney
3 Rating(s)
List: $29.95 | Sale: $20.97
Club: $14.97

Evelina
or, The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World

Author: Frances Burney

Narrator: Orson Scott Card, Emily Janice Card, Stefan Rudnicki, Gabrielle de Cuir

Unabridged: 18 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Skyboat Media

Published: 04/08/2014


Synopsis

Originally published in 1778, Evelina is Frances Burney's first and most beloved novel. It was a landmark in the development of the novel of manners and went on to influence such enduringly popular authors as Jane Austen.By turns hilarious and grim, witty and lyrical, the story follows young Evelina as she leaves the seclusion of her country home and enters into late eighteenth-century London society—both its pleasures and its dangers. Life in eighteenth-century England is vividly rendered as Evelina is educated in the ways of the world and, eventually, love. As she battles such cruelties as social snobbery and delights in such thrills as pleasure gardens and balls, Evelina strives toward her final triumph, while capturing the hearts of listeners everywhere along the way.

About Frances Burney

Frances Burney (1752–1840) was a British novelist, diarist, and playwright. In total, she wrote four novels, eight plays, one biography, and twenty volumes of journals and letters. She is best known for her landmark work Evelina.

About Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card, the author of the New York Times bestseller Ender’s Game, has won several Hugo and Nebula awards for his works of speculative fiction. His Ender novels are widely read by adults and younger readers and are increasingly used in schools. Besides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary fantasy, American-frontier fantasy, biblical novels, poetry, plays, and scripts.

About Claire Bloom

Claire Bloom, CBE, is an English film and stage actress, known for leading roles in plays such as Streetcar Named Desire, A Doll’s House, and Long Day’s Journey into Night, along with nearly sixty films and countless television roles, during a career spanning over six decades. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 Queen’s birthday honors for services to drama.

About Emily Janice Card

Emily Janice Card has read a number of audiobooks, including Ben Bova's The Aftermath, Orson Scott Card's Ender in Exile, Lisa Gardner's The Neighbor, and several titles by Kimberly Willis Holt. Card  is an actor, singer, and writer from North Carolina.  On screen, she's appeared in The Delivery.  Her stage work includes The Importance of Being Earnest, Bye Bye Birdie, The Fantasticks, and Once Upon a Mattress.  She also adapted and starred in the play A Sepulcher of Songs, based on a short story by her father, Orson Scott Card.

About Stefan Rudnicki

Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and an award-winning narrator who has won several Audie Awards and been named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices. A longtime fan of Weird fiction, and of Robert W. Chambers in particular, Stefan’s dramatic adaptation of The King in Yellow received the Madolin Cervantes Award from the Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers and was staged by him at the Donnell Library Center in New York City.

About Gabrielle de Cuir

Gabrielle de Cuir is a Grammy-nominated and Audie Award-winning producer whose narration credits include the voice of Valentine in Orson Scott Card’s Ender novels, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan, and Natalie Angier’s Woman, for which she was awarded AudioFile magazine’s Golden Earphones Award. She lives in Los Angeles where she also directs theatre and presently has several projects in various stages of development for film.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bill on February 17, 2020

This is a very good 18th century epistolary novel. The prose is precise and elegant, the voices of the various letter writers are well delineated and individualized, and the author makes us admire the heroine and fret over the difficulties which obstruct her happiness. The two lovers—the naive Eveli......more

Goodreads review by Henry on June 04, 2024

Once upon a time in a rural home, many miles from any city lived a girl of seventeen of exquisite beauty with a country parson the humble Reverend Arthur Villars, a kindly old man of the cloth, her foster parent; Evelina of obscure birth, the rest of her name in doubt, maybe Anville...no, it's as go......more

Goodreads review by Wealhtheow on July 01, 2013

Written more than thirty years before Austen’s first novel was published, it concerns eighteenth century society rather than nineteenth century. As such, I found myself constantly at a loss. Before reading this book, I thought I had a good handle on the manners of the period. I know the difference b......more

Goodreads review by Katie on July 28, 2018

Maybe 3.5. I did enjoy this, but it took me a little while to get into; for me the stronger section was the last quarter. The letter form didn't entirely work for me, but Evelina is an interesting character, and it's a fun read. I can certainly see how Burney inspired Jane Austen, although I have to......more

Goodreads review by Sasha on February 18, 2016

Saw With Manners "How in the world can you contrive to pass your time?" "In a manner which your Lordship will think very extraordinary; for the young lady reads." First the good news: Evelina is a story about introverts in love, and it has moments that are lovely. I recognized my introverted wife in se......more


Quotes

“Before Evelina, the heart of girlhood had never been so fully opened in literature.” William Dean Howells, American author and literary critic

“Fanny Burney’s first novel, Evelina, was the chick-lit novel of 1778—all about a young girl’s adventures in London and one of the best of its kind ever written.” Times (London)

“We owe to [Burney] not only Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla but also Mansfield Park and The Absentee.” Thomas Babington Macaulay, British essayist and reviewer