We now approach the time when the ‘History of Evelina’ was given to the world. There has been much futile controversy as to the date at which this novel was composed. As the author was unquestionably half-way between twenty-five and twenty-six when her first book was published, it has been inferred that she was not much below that age when she began the story. This inference was put in sharp contrast with a current report—which cannot be traced to Frances Burney or her family—that she wrote ‘Evelina’ at seventeen. Her enemy Croker went so far as to suggest that she represented herself to have been ten years younger than she really was at the period of the publication.[31] But if we may trust Mrs. Barrett, who had not only the ‘Memoirs,’ but Fanny’s early and still unpublished journals to guide her, the author herself would have been puzzled to say exactly when her tale was written. It was planned in girlhood, worked at by snatches, and occupied long years in growing up. The idea of seeing it in print seems to have been conceived in 1776, shortly after the appearance of the first volume of her father’s History, and we are distinctly told by Madame d’Arblay and her biographer, that there was already a manuscript in existence. We gather, however, that this manuscript was imperfect; and it would manifestly be presuming too much to suppose that its contents remained unaltered, and unimproved, in the transcript which the writer proceeded to make before taking any other step. Though stimulated by her father’s success, and encouraged by her sisters, whom she took into her confidence, Fanny was, nevertheless, determined that, in bringing forward her work, she would keep its authorship unknown. She therefore copied out her manuscript in a feigned upright hand, in order to guard against the possibility of her ordinary writing being recognised by some one who had seen the numerous pages of the paternal books which she had transcribed for the printer. Tiring of her irksome task when she had accomplished enough to fill two volumes, she wrote a letter, without signature, to be sent to some bookseller, offering the fairly-copied portion for immediate publication, and promising to forward the rest in the following year. This proposal was first directed to Dodsley, who, in answer, declined to look at anything without being previously informed of the author’s name. Fanny and her sisters, “after sitting in committee on this lofty reply,” addressed another offer, in like terms, to Lowndes, a publisher in Fleet Street. The latter, less exacting than his brother at the West-End, desired to see the manuscript, which—there being no Parcels Delivery Company in those days—was conveyed to him by young Charles Burney, muffled up by his sisters to make him look older than he was. Lowndes read, was pleased, and declared himself willing to purchase and print the work when finished, but he naturally would not hear of publishing an unfinished novel.