Evelina

Evelina or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World is a novel written by English author Frances Burney and first published in 1778.Evelina the title character is the unacknowledged but legitimate daughter of a dissipated English aristocrat. Her dubious birth has seen her raised in rural seclusion until her seventeenth year. Through a series of humorous events that take place in London and the resort town of Hotwells near Bristol Evelina learns how to navigate the complex layers of 18th-century society and earn the love of a distinguished nobleman. This sentimental novel which has notions of sensibility and early romanticism satirizes the society in which it is set and is a significant precursor to later works by Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth whose novels explore many of the same issues. (wikipedia.org)