Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson 1689-1761, English novelist, b. Derbyshire. When he was 50 and established as a prosperous printer, Richardson was asked to compose a guide to letter writing. The idea of introducing a central theme occurred to him, and he interrupted his task to write and publish his novel of morals in letter form, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (2 vol., 1740). The novel tells the story of a virtuous young maidservant who so successfully eludes the lecherous assaults of her employer's son that the young man finally marries her. The guide, known now as Familiar Letters, came out in 1741, just before Vol. III and IV of Pamela. Richardson wrote two more long, epistolary novels, Clarissa Harlowe (7 vol., 1747-48), the tragic story of a girl who runs off with her seducer, regarded today as his best work, and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (7 vol., 1753-54). All Richardson's novels were enormously popular in their day. Although he was a verbose and sentimental storyteller, his emphasis on detail, his psychological insights into women, and his dramatic technique have earned him a prominent place among English novelists.

Bibliography: See his correspondence, ed. by A. L. Barbauld (6 vol., 1804; repr. 1966); biographies by T. C. D. Eaves and B. D. Kimpel (1971) and J. Harris (1987); studies by J. W. Krutch (1930, repr. 1959), J. J. Carroll (1969), M. Kinkead-Weekes (1973), C. G. Wolff (1973), and W. B. Warner (1979), C. H. Flynn (1982), and M. Doody and P. Sabor, ed. (1989).

Richardson, Samuel (1689–1761). Novelist. Born in Derbyshire, Richardson settled in London and became a master printer. His first novel Pamela or Virtue Rewarded (1740–2) was published when he was 51. Clarissa Harlowe and Sir Charles Grandison followed in 1744 and 1753. They were instant successes. They dealt with the manners and morals of relatively ordinary people attempting to survive in a naughty world with some degree of happiness and self‐respect. They were salacious enough to make excellent reading.