Clarissa--Or the History of a Young Lady

Born in Derbyshire to a joiner, Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) received little formal education; in 1706, he was apprenticed to a printer in London. Thirteen years later, he set himself up as a stationer and printer and became one of the leading figures in the trade. At the age of fifty, he turned his hand to writing. His epistolary novels—including his masterpiece, Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady (1747–48)— brought him great success and a bevy of admirers.

Sheila Ortiz-Taylor is Professor Emeritus of English at Florida State University, where she taught the British and American novel, as well as creative writing and women’s literature, since receiving her PhD from UCLA in 1973. A former Fulbright Fellow, she is the author of eight novels, including Homestead and Faultline.

Lynn Shepherd has a doctorate in English literature from Oxford University, and is the author of Clarissa’s Painter: Portraiture, Illustration, and Representation in the Novels of Samuel Richardson, published by Oxford University Press. She is also an award-winning novelist, and has published literary mysteries inspired by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and the lives of the Shelleys.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON

CLARISSA

or

The History of a Young Woman

ABRIDGED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

SHEILA ORTIZ-TAYLOR

AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY

LYNN SHEPHERD

SIGNET CLASSICS

SIGNET CLASSICS

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Abridgment and Introduction copyright © Sheila Ortiz-Taylor, 2005

Afterword copyright © Lynn Shepherd, 2014

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REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

ISBN 978-0-698-14901-4

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Version_1

Contents

About the Author

Title page

Copyright page

INTRODUCTION

Letter 1: MISS ANNA HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 2: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 3: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 4: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 5: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 6: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 7: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 8: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 9: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 10: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 11: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 12: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 15: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 16: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 17: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 19: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 20: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 21: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 22: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 23: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 25: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Clarissa to Mrs Harlowe

Mrs Harlowe to Clarissa

Letter 26: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 27: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 28: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 30: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 31: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 34: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 35: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 36: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 40: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 47: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 49: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 50: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

James Harlowe, Jun. to Clarissa Harlowe

Clarissa Harlowe to James Harlowe, Jun.

Letter 53: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

to Mr James Harlowe, Jun.

Letter 55: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 56: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 62: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 64: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

To Miss Clarissa Harlowe

Letter 70: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 71: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 72: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 73: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 80: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 81: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 82: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 83: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 84: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 85: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 87: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 88: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 90: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 91: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 92: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 93: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 94: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 95: MR LOVELACE TO JOSEPH LEMAN

Letter 97: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 98: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 99: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 100: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 107: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 108: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 109: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 110: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 111: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 116: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 121: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 123: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 125: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 126: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 127: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 128: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 129: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 130: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 131: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 135: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 136: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 137: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 138: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 143: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 145: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 146: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 147: MISS ARABELLA HARLOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 148: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 149: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 152: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 153: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 154: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 155: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 159: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 163: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 164: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 165: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 167: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 169: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 170: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 175: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 177: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 178: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 181: MISS HOWE TO MRS JUDITH NORTON

Letter 183: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 184: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 185: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 186: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 187: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 188: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 194: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 196: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 198: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 199: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 200: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 201: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 207: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 209: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 211: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 219: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 220: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 224: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 225: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 226: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 228: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 229: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 230: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 231: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 232: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

ACT II. SCENE, Hampstead Heath Continued Enter my Rascal

Letter 233: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 234: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 236: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 241: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 246: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 248: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 250: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 251: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 252: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 253: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 255: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 256: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 257: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 259: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 260: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 261: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

PAPER I

PAPER II

PAPER III

PAPER V

Letter 262: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 263: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 264: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 266: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 267: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 268: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 275: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 276: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 277: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 278: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 280: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 281: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 284: MR LOVELACE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 292: MR MOWBRAY TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 294: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 295: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 296: MRS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 310: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 311: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 316: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 318: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 319: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 320: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 321: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 327: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 329: MISS HOWE TO MISS CHARLOTTE MONTAGUE

Letter 330: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 333: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 334: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 336: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 338: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 340: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 343: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 346: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 351: MISS HOWE TO MISS ARABELLA HARLOWE

Letter 352: MISS ARABELLA HARLOWE TO MISS ANNA HOWE

Letter 358: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 359: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 365: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 367: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 368: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 370: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 371: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 372: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 379: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 391: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 395: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 396: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 401: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 409: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MRS NORTON

Letter 414: MR BELFORD TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 415: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 416: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 417: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 418: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 421: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 423: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 426: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 439: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 440: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 442: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 448: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO WM. MORDEN, ESQ.

Letter 449: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 450: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 451: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 454: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 455: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 456: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 457: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 458: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Letter 460: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 466: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 472: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 473: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 476: MR BELFORD

Letter 479: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 481: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 486: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 497: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 500: COLONEL MORDEN TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 515: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 517: MR BELFORD TO COLONEL MORDEN

Letter 519: COLONEL MORDEN TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 520: COLONEL MORDEN TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 521: MR BELFORD TO MISS HOWE

Letter 523: MISS HOWE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 525: LORD M. TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 526: MR BELFORD TO LORD M.

Letter 527: MR BELFORD TO LORD M.

Letter 533: MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Letter 534: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 536: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Letter 537: F. J. DE LA TOUR TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ., NEAR SOHO SQUARE, LONDON

Afterword

Samuel Richardson: From Printer to Pamela

Clarissa: “A Double Yet Separate Correspondence”

The Role of the Reader: “Something Should Be Left to Debate Upon”

Kinship and Control : “Our Family Has Indeed Been Strangely Discomposed”

Space and Setting: “I Have Only Escaped from One Confinement to Another”

Selected Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

I

Novels fascinate us because they mirror back to us our own lives, which we perceive as hurried and unintelligible, yet somehow strangely significant. Characters in novels stand in for real people, so we watch them with interest as they struggle within a stream of events marked in the beginning by the phrase Once upon a time and rounded at the end with the phrase And they all lived happily ever after. We may learn something vicariously by attending to their dilemmas and even experience a kind of consolation, a sense of solidarity, as Joseph Conrad envisioned it, with humankind.1 Among the many preoccupations shared by people and characters is time.

Characters, like real people, are preoccupied with time. Each of us has a personal relationship with time, and each of us experiences the trajectory of a life determined by time, though that understanding may flicker within us uncertainly and only on occasion. Reading a novel permits us to carefully observe this compelling phenomenon through a distancing lens. Novels throw illuminating light on temporal dimensions because time works both as subject matter and as form.

This is particularly true of Clarissa, which though it records the events of a single year, does so with such density, such attention to detail, that we feel we have lived a whole year of real time in reading it. And in fact, because the novel was published over the space of a year, none of Richardson’s contemporaries could possibly read Clarissa’s experience faster than she could live it.

Richardson once characterized his technique as “this way of writing, to the moment.”2 The effect is an almost cinematic focus on the present, yet with a curious preoccupation with the perpetually reconstructed past and an anxiety about the unknowable future. Something could happen at any minute. Anything. Teetering on the present, reaching backward for support, eyes on the future, the characters reel from moment to moment. This reeling is the emotional atmosphere of Clarissa, but it is also its intellectual content.

The language of the letters is tentative, speculative, and wondering. The characters formulate and revise their wishes, but they may be blocked by the wishes and particularly by the strategies of others. Everyone wants his or her own way.

The struggle for power rages over a reality that is disputed territory. The world of Clarissa is presented subjectively, with subjectivity itself becoming part of our wondering inquiry—for in epistolary novels the reader can never directly experience what actually happened. Instead, what happened must be reconstructed for us, after the fact, by witnesses at various removes from the action itself, witnesses with convoluted motives and varying degrees of credibility.