After many delays Evelina appeared in January 1778.  Poor Fanny was sick with terror, and durst hardly stir out of doors.  Some days passed before any thing was heard of the book.  It had, indeed, nothing but its own merits to push it into public favour.  Its author was unknown.  The house by which it was published, was not, we believe, held in high estimation.  No body of partisans had been engaged to applaud.  The better class of readers expected little from a novel about a young lady’s entrance into the world.  There was, indeed, at that time a disposition among the most respectable people to condemn novels generally; nor was this disposition by any means without excuse; for works of that sort were then almost always silly, and very frequently wicked.

Soon, however, the first faint accents of praise began to be heard.  The keepers of the circulating libraries reported that every body was asking for Evelina, and that some person had guessed Anstey to be the Author.  Then came a favourable notice in the London Review; then another still more favourable in the Monthly.  And now the book found its way to tables which had seldom been polluted by marble-covered volumes.  Scholars and statesmen who contemptuously abandoned the crowd of romances to Miss Lydia Languish and Miss Sukey Saunter, were not ashamed to own that they could not tear themselves away from Evelina.  Fine carriages and rich liveries, not often seen east of Temple Bar, were attracted to the publisher’s shop in Fleet Street.  Lowndes was daily questioned about the author; but was himself as much in the dark as any of the questioners.  The mystery, however, could not remain a mystery long.  It was known to brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins:  and they were far too proud and too happy to be discreet.  Dr. Burney wept over the book in rapture.  Daddy Crisp shook his fist at his Fannikin in affectionate anger at not having been admitted to her confidence.  The truth was whispered to Mrs. Thrale; and then it began to spread fast.

The book had been admired while it was ascribed to men of letters long conversant with the world, and accustomed to composition.  But when it was known that a reserved, silent young woman had produced the best work of fiction that had appeared since the death of Smollett, the acclamations were redoubled.  What she had done was, indeed, extraordinary.  But, as usual, various reports improved the story till it became miraculous.  Evelina, it was said, was the work of a girl of seventeen.  Incredible as this tale was, it continued to be repeated down to our own time.  Frances was too honest to confirm it.  Probably she was too much a woman to contradict it; and it was long before any of her detractors thought of this mode of annoyance.  Yet there was no want of low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first appearance.  There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp George Steevens and the polecat John Williams.  It did