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Samuel Richardson in Context
Since the publication of his novel Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded in 1740, Samuel Richardson's place in the English literary tradition has been secured. But how can that place best be described? Over the three centuries since embarking on his printing career the 'divine' novelist has been variously understood as moral crusader, advocate for women, pioneer of the realist novel and print innovator. Situating Richardson's work within these social, intellectual and material contexts, this new volume of essays identifies his centrality to the emergence of the novel, the self-help book, and the idea of the professional author, as well as his influence on the development of the modern English language, the capitalist economy, and gendered, medicalized, urban, and national identities. This book enables a fuller understanding and appreciation of Richardson's life, work and legacy, and points the way for future studies of one of English literature's most celebrated novelists.
Pamela, Or Virtue Rewarded
"This novel (published 1740) created an epoch in the history of English fiction, and, with its successors, exerted a wide influence upon Continental literature. It is appropriately included in a series which is designed to form a group of studies of English life by the masters of English fiction. For it marked the transition from the novel of adventure to the novel of character—from the narration of entertaining events to the study of men and of manners, of motives and of sentiments. In it the romantic interest of the story (which is of the slightest) is subordinated to the moral interest in the conduct of its characters in the various situations in which they are placed. Upon this aspect of the “drama of human life” Richardson cast a most observant, if not always a penetrating glance. His works are an almost microscopically detailed picture of English domestic life in the early part of the eighteenth century." -Preface
The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), the English writer and printer best known for his epistolary novels, including Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1748), had preserved copies of his extensive correspondence with a view to its eventual publication, and these volumes, edited by Anna Laetitia Barbauld and first published in 1804, contain her selection from his papers. Richardson became a printer's apprentice in 1706 and for the rest of his life managed a successful printing business in addition to writing his highly popular and influential novels. After the success of Pamela, Richardson regularly corresponded with leading contemporary literary figures including Henry Fielding and Samuel Johnson. The letters provide fascinating insights into Richardson's life and literary and social activities, as well as discussions of current affairs. Volume 1 contains a biography of Richardson by Mrs Barbauld; this is followed by his correspondence with friends such as Aaron Hill and the Scots printer William Strahan.
