Fanny Burney's Evelina

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Fanny Burney: Evelina (1778): An Introduction The Epistolary: Pamela, like its greater and tragic successor, Richardson’s Clarissa (1747-8), is an epistolary novel; that is, the narrative is conveyed entirely by an exchange of letters. Later novelists have preferred alternative devices for limiting the narrative point of view to one or another single character, but the epistolary technique is still occasionally revived – for example, in Mark Harris’ hilarious novel Wake Up, Stupid (1959).[1] The Epistolary Relies on: - The correspondents being physically separated from one another - The correspondents having the means to convey letters to one another - The readers’ credulity not being stretched too much by the premise that anybody would ever write this many letters – if taken to an extreme (as in Clarissa) it can lead the reader to wonder how the writer had the time to do all the things they are writing about because they are always writing! Problems / Challenges for the Writer of Epistolary Fiction: - All of the above! (See Shamela, in particular, for Fielding’s attack upon the limitations of the epistolary) - Anybody writing epistolary fiction in the latter eighteenth century was arguably in the shadow of the form’s greatest practitioner, Richardson - These problems in Evelina: see, for instance, Volume I, Letter XV (Mr. Villars to Evelina): “I cannot too much thank you, my best Evelina, for the minuteness of your communications; continue to me this indulgence, for I should be miserable if in ignorance of your proceedings”:[2] Burney is forced to manufacture a reason why Evelina should write so many letters! - Volume III, Letter XXIII (Evelina to Rev. Mr. Villars): Surely Villars would be at the wedding in the normal run of events? Burney has to plot events so that he is not there – in order that Evelina can
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