so what is your favorite jane austen
novel well according to a poll from over
on
our community tab it looks like you guys
really love
pride and prejudice but did you know
that back when jane austen first wrote
pride and prejudice that her father
tried to get it published
and in the letter that he sent to the
publisher he likened
it to a book called evelina by
fanny bernie have you ever heard of
evelina or fanny bernie
not a lot of people have but today we're
going to be delving into who is fanny
bernie
what is this novel evelina and also how
we can see
evelina and fanny bernie's influence on
jane austen's writings
my name is ellie dashwood and this is my
channel where i talk about classic
literature and history if you like
either of those things
please subscribe so first up who was
fanny bernie
and why are we talking about her well
francis bernie was the daughter of a
musician
charles bernie and she was born in 1752
she was a writer in the age of
sensibility and her debut work
evelina which we'll be talking more
about here was a sensation
and she went on to publish two other
very famous works
named cecilia and camilla camilla being
jane austen's
absolute favorite among bernie's works
and she also
just led a very interesting life she was
a courtier at the court of queen
charlotte for a while
and at the age of 41 she married a
french in the grey
and became madame de arbley also she had
a mastectomy
that she was awake the whole time and
survived and lived a long time
so yeah really tough there we're going
to be talking about her because she was
a fantastic
author all on her own and she really
furthered the novel
i talked in my video i made about who
was jane austen
how jane also started creating
characters that were really realistic
and while this is true she didn't just
sort of come up with this
all by herself there were a few authors
right before her that were leading the
way
i think the quote from isaac newton
really applies where he said if i have
seen further
is by standing on the shoulders of
giants
and so really jane austen came along
during an era where these women writers
were really doing fantastic
things and she stood on their shoulders
and she took the novel to the next level
and of course one of those novelists was
fanny bernie and
jane austen pretty much straight up
almost names her
when talking about the excellence of
novels
here in north anger abby when she goes
on that very famous sort of rant about
how the novel is awesome
she says it is only cecilia or camilla
or belinda or in short only some work in
which the greatest powers of the mind
are displayed in which the most thorough
knowledge of human nature
the happiest delimitation of its
verities and the liveliest effusions of
wit and humor are conveyed to the world
in the best chosen language
well camilla and cecilia are both novels
by fannie bernie and also fanny bernie
proved
to the world that a woman can write a
novel about
everyday english life and have it sell
well and this is one of those moments
where if you see another woman doing
something that maybe you didn't think
was possible
it gives you the hope that you can do it
too and that's what it did for jane
austen
so let's talk about her breakout work
evelina that was first published in 1778
when jane austen was just a girl
evelina tells the story of evelina i
know
that was a shocking moment for you all
but evelina is a young lady
who is about to enter london society
with her best friend
but her adoptive father is very worried
about her because of course
london is known as a city of vice
versus virtue her adopted father is this
country clergyman who was everything
great and noble and righteous and took
her in
after her mother died a most tragic
death and her
father was a scoundrel basically a ton
of drama went
down before evelina was born which is
part of
the whole story of the plot anyway
because of what happened to her mother
her guardian's even more scared about
her going to london
but she wants to go to london with her
best friend and enjoy
society and go to the exciting gardens
and stuff
and go to balls and so he allows her
and she gets there and she discovers
that she has country manners and is way
over her head socially
yeah that's pretty much what the story
is and so we definitely see that
comedy of manners of where she keeps
messing up
socially and it's all awkward and steep
learning curve there in london
anyway there at one of the balls where
she keeps making social blunders
and while there she meets the very
eligible lord orville
who has no relation to the popcorn
company anyway
he is everything that is also noble
and honest and good or so it seems at
least
if you've watched my video about how to
be the ideal regency girl
where i talk about four dice's sermons
then you might be familiar with
four dice and one thing that he talked
about was
honorable love versus false gallantry
really what was behind
a man's gallantry was honorable love or
was it
false and so i think that's one of the
themes we explore here with lord orville
and with her other suitor that is named
sir clement willoughby that's right
willoughby we're gonna talk about that
in a minute
so sir clement is a bit overbearing and
between
that and the fact that she already
doesn't know what she's doing
she's already having a hard time when
bam her long-lost grandmother shows up
who is awful if you think mrs bennett
for prime prejudice is awful you have
not met
evelina's long-lost grandmother
basically so now she's struggling with
family drama
her own inability to be socially on cue
this overbearing suitor this guy she
likes but she thinks is totally out of
her league
so much drama but my overall review of
evelina though is
i absolutely love it if you love jane
austen's works
definitely go read evelina i highly
highly recommend it
i definitely think we see bernie taking
significant steps forward in the
creation of realistic characters
however i do think she does fall prey to
what all the authors at her time were
doing which was making
her female leads just too angelic
avelina's like
at heart this naive unspoiled angel
of light kind of and i feel like that's
what we see that's also what we see in
the mysteries of udolpho
and just so many other works of this
time but at the same time we see a
fantastic comedy of manners and
we get to see london of this time period
really sketched out well for us and all
of the fashionable things
the upper classes did at this time are
talked about
in depth and it's just a fascinating
read so again
highly recommend that go read that if
you love pride and prejudice which i
know you do
because the poll said so so really
quickly let's talk about
how evelina affected jane austen's
writings so when i started reading
eveline
i didn't really expect to just pick up
so many things that were like
i've read this before and it is like
there are so many
plot points you can definitely tell jane
austen's drawing off of
so first off let's talk a little bit
about pride and prejudice i think
what i see from evelina and pride and
prejudice is
the awkwardness of first impressions the
very first time
evelina meets lord orville she does not
make a good impression
at the ball and not only that but just
like how we see
elizabeth overhearing what darcy has to
say about
her at the very first ball they meet at
evelina
through the grapevine gets to hear what
lord orville
has to say about her and it is not at
all flattering
so as soon as that went down i'm like oh
pride and prejudice vibes there
and two from that point forward it is
this question of like
can she ever overcome this first
impression she made on lord orville
next up let's talk about simpsons
ability of course
willoughby the guy who's an overbearing
suitor
who you know not to give too many
spoilers but i feel like there's a
reason willoughby's named willoughby
right like you know may not be the best
guy
ever on the planet i think overall
willoughby
in since instance ability it's a
combination of willoughby from evelina
and also
valincort from the mysteries of udolpho
so we see this sort of
hybrid in there and of course there's a
huge dash of jane austen's
own imagination in him but i definitely
see articles of both
in willoughby from sensibility also in
sensing sensibility
the awkward relationship the dashwood
sisters are forced into with the still
sisters really reminds me
of evelina in this book when she's sort
of forced into this relationship with
also her long-lost cousins who show up
and i think that same dynamic is very
interesting and staying on this awkward
dynamic let's talk about mansfield park
really quick
in mansfield park fanny has to go home
at one point
and visit her poor family and it's
so awkward and horrible for her
that is both my favorite and my least
favorite part of mansfield park
it's epic the way jane austen captured
it
but it's also so painful to read for
poor fanny
so when it did hit the certain part of
evelina
when she has to go stay with her
long-lost grandmother and interact with
her cousins and everything
it reminded me so much of that part of
mansfield park and i was like i have
definitely seen this dynamic before
and it is straight out of mansfield park
or rather
mansfield park is straight out of
evelina there's obviously
noticeable differences all the
characters are different and everything
but i feel like the overall
feel and concept of the dynamic is the
same now let's talk about northanger
abbey and emma i feel like
there's a lot from northanger abbey and
emma in this
one thing is that in north anger abbey
the henry tilney catherine moorland
relationship reminds me
so much of the lord orville
evelina relationship not so much on the
joking but just
this concept of where there's this
really naive
girl who's out in society for the first
time and she comes across this guy who
is very noble
and does sort of like take her under his
wing because that's what we really see
henry tilney do
he even cautions her against thorpe i
think chile in a lot of ways
is there to take care of catherine at
the same time i feel like
jane austen is even satirizing a little
bit evelina because then evelina
she meets her best friend and then like
they're instantly best friends
it's like oh you are my long-lost sister
of heart
we are one now and i feel like that's
the same exact thing that catherine
does in northanger when she meets
isabella thorpe it's like oh we're best
friends
we've met like yesterday but like
nothing will ever separate us
and so i feel like there was a little
bit of satire there but i think she was
satirizing the whole overall age of
sensibility because we definitely see
jane's opinion on that throughout all of
her works where
too much sensibility is just not a great
thing and also we see that a little bit
in emmett
in this relationship with harriet where
maybe it wasn't the best thing that
emma and harriet became sudden best
friends
something else seen in both northanger
abby and emma is a really awkward being
stuck
in a coach with the guy situation where
we see this in emma
with mr elton's sudden proposal and we
see this in northanger abbey when thorpe
kidnaps her from the walk
and so both of these elements were
actually drawing off a long tradition
of it's dangerous to get into carriages
with guys
which wasn't several novels before jane
austen's it was sort of a trope she used
and
we definitely see that in evelina as
well so yes definitely overall at least
in my opinion there is
a lot of aspects that jane drew off of
from fannie bernie just
not only on plot points but again in
character development
and really fanny bernie started to write
about
everyday life that social realism of
course
there are things that were a little bit
romanticized
and obviously the age of sensibility was
there definitely sprinkling in some
over-the-top emotional reactions but
still this was a huge
leap forward that jane austen was able
to build off of so let me again know in
the comments below
which is your favorite novel my name is
ellie dashwood and this is my channel
where i talk about classic literature
and history if you like any of those
things
please subscribe and keep having an
awesome day because you're awesome
bye baby no no baby
baby no you're not allowed to eat the
flowers my cat has been trying to eat
those flowers
all day and yes i i call her baby
because she's the baby of the family
she's a tiny baby
millie she's like i don't know how old
are you are you gonna turn four this
year
yeah she's still a baby
you