Clarissa Harlowe

By Samuel Richardson

Clarissa

- Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is regarded as the longest novel in the English language (based on estimated word count). It is generally regarded as Richardson's masterpiece.

Samuel Richardson

- Samuel Richardson (19 August 1689 – 4 July 1761) was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753). Richardson was an established printer and publisher for most of his life and printed almost 500 different works, including journals and magazines. He was also known to collaborate closely with the London bookseller Andrew Millar on several occasions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Samuel Richardson
• Release date: Jul 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9786050471434

Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was an English writer and printer. Born the son of a carpenter, Richardson received a limited education before becoming a printer’s apprentice. He established his own shop in 1719 and received his first major contract in 1723, printing a bi-weekly Jacobite newspaper which was soon censored. Having married in 1721, Richardson and his wife Martha Wilde suffered the loss of several sons before Martha succumbed to illness in 1732. Devastated, Richardson eventually remarried and focused on his career, earning a contract with the House of Commons in 1733 and hiring several apprentices to assist him at his shop. During this time, Richardson turned to fiction, publishing his first novel, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded in 1740, a work now considered the first modern novel. Throughout the remainder of his career, he published two more epistolary novels—Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753)—while continuing his work as a prominent and successful printer. He published and befriended many of the leading writers of his time, including Daniel Defoe, Sarah Fielding, and Samuel Johnson.