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Written in secret, the manuscript copied for her publisher in disguised handwriting, Frances Burney's first novel Evelina appeared anonymously in 1778. It was a sequel to Caroline Evelyn, the novel burned by its author when she was fifteen; Evelina, the apparently illegitimate daughter of vanished Caroline, happily enters a society much more dangerous than she realizes. Subtitled The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World the novel records in letters its young heroine's encounters with society, both high and low, in London and at fashionable watering places.
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