Evelina (Bedford Cultural Editions)

This edition reprints the text of Burney's classic novel together with a broad selection of documents on life in eighteenth-century England that have been carefully chosen to put the work in its historical and cultural context. Special attention is given to eighteenth-century conduct literature, including Burney's own reactions to her society's codes of behavior for the young lady. In addition, the documents include first hand descriptions of fashionable English society at the end of the eighteenth century from observers both inside and ouside of its folds as well as materials on the often violent underside of the British trade and military expansion that helped construct the fashionable world Burney's heroine enters. A general introduction providing historical and culural background, a chronology of Burney's life and times, introductions to each thematic group of documents, headnotes, extensive annotations, a selected bibligraphy, and a generous selection of maps and illustations make this volume a definitive scholarly edition of this classic work of eighteenth-century literature.