Fanny Burney`s lighthearted first novel, completed after nine years of secret labor, was published anonymously in January 1778. Before the end of that year, it had gone through four editions--a huge popular success. In Burney`s own words, it is the story, written in letters, of a young woman of obscure birth, but conspicuous beauty, who makes, at the age of seventeen, her first appearance upon the great and busy stage of life; with a virtuous mind, a cultivated understanding, and a feeling heart, her ignorance of the forms, and inexperience in the manners of the world, occasion all the little incidents which these volumes record. As a chronicle of life in 18th-century England, EVELINA is incomparable, Burney`s heroine is a lovable (and unerringly perfect!) young woman, and the entire novel is leavened by its author`s sharp satirical eye.