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Indiana University Studies 



and it would lose little of its stability if the later of these were re- 

 moved". 



The first novel has a fair chance for immortality. It is vivacious; 

 it is not too long ; it has dramatic situations ; and it has a fresh, rare 

 chaiim. "Evelina, though a goose, is perhaps the sweetest and dearest 

 goose in all fiction. "^^^ Aside from its intrinsic merits, it has an im- 

 portant place in the history of fiction. Altho by no means the first 

 English novel by a woman, it really marks the beginning of the fine 

 work subsequently accomplished by women in English fiction. Its 

 author stands at the head of that line of women writers to which 

 belong Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, 

 Susan Ferrier, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot. ''Before the 

 appearance of Miss Burney, the novel of manners had been culti- 

 vated almost exclusively by men"; but with the publication of 

 Evelina, "the world is presented in fiction as it appears to a woman". 

 Her book "carries the novel of manners into domestic life, and pre- 

 pares the way for Miss Edgeworth and the exquisite parlour-pieces of 

 Miss Austen". Sir Walter Raleigh bears the same testimony: 

 "Her brilliant, shrewd satire and close observation were unmatched 

 in her own time, and she prepared the way for Miss Austen, who 

 subscribed for Camilla, and took the title of her earliest novel. Pride 

 and Prejudice, from the concluding sentences of Cecilia.^^'^'^^ And so, 

 the novel of manners, the most popular class of today's fiction, owes 

 as much to the author of Evelina and the women writers who followed 

 her as to Richardson or Fielding or Goldsmith. 



Why, then, did the later works of such a writer fail? Because she 

 was not content to go on writing as she had done at first, but now 

 sought to be magniloquent. Her head had been so turned by the 

 success of her first brilliant achievement and she was so conscious 

 of her audience that now she craved applause with every line. The 

 consequence was that she developed every bad tendency that she had. 

 She out-Johnsoned Johnson; she outwept the school of Mackenzie; 

 she sentimentalized beyond even the most sentimental moods of 

 Richardson; and with an artificiality totally depraved, she crushed 

 out the fresh, charming power of her native genius. 



The first novel had a narrow escape. The grotesque exaggeration 

 and distortion of Camilla and The Wanderer were only the outgrowth 



136 The English Novel, 260. 



137 Wi D. Howells, Heroines of Fiction, I, 14. 



138 Wilbur F. Cross, Development of the English Novel, 95. 



139 Austin Dobson, Fanny Burney, 204. 

 "a The English Novel, 260. 



"1 W. E. Simonds, Introduction to English Fiction. 62. 



