Frances Burney’s sudden fame, following the 1778 publication of the initially anonymous Evelina, dramatically altered her social and personal life. The novel’s success—three reprints of the copyrighted Lowndes edition, and a pirated Irish edition within just one year—secured Burney’s reputation as a major literary voice of her time (see Kochkina for a detailed overview of the novel’s history). Adding “The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World” as the novel’s subtitle aligned Burney’s work with the narrative conventions of Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson, famously invoked in the “Preface” to the novel, while she emphasized verisimilitude through her epistolary realism.
The novel’s success exposed Burney’s identity, forcing her out of anonymity and into the public eye. Her father, Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814)—a prominent music historian and man of letters, author of the monumental...
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Citation: Saggini, Francesca. "The Witlings". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 November 2025 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23808, accessed 09 June 2026.]
