105-) English Literature

105) English Literature

Samuel Richardson 

 

First novel

Work continued to improve, and Richardson printed the Daily Journal between 1736 and 1737, and the Daily Gazetteer in 1738.   During his time printing the Daily Journal, he was also printer to the "Society for the Encouragement of Learning", a group that tried to help authors become independent from publishers, but collapsed soon after. In December 1738, Richardson's printing business was successful enough to allow him to lease a house in Fulham in London.   This house, which would be Richardson's residence from 1739 to 1754, was later named "The Grange" in 1836.   In 1739, Richardson was asked by his friends Charles Rivington and John Osborn to write "a little volume of Letters, in a common style, on such subjects as might be of use to those country readers, who were unable to indite for themselves".  While writing this volume, Richardson was inspired to write his first novel.

Richardson made the transition from master printer to novelist on 6 November 1740 with the publication of Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded. Pamela was sometimes regarded as "the first novel in English"  or the first modern novel. Richardson explained the origins of the work:

In the progress of [Rivington's and Osborn's collection], writing two or three letters to instruct handsome girls, who were obliged to go out to service, as we phrase it, how to avoid the snares that might be laid against their virtue, and hence sprung Pamela... Little did I think, at first, of making one, much less two volumes of it... I thought the story, if written in an easy and natural manner, suitably to the simplicity of it, might possibly introduce a new species of writing, that might possibly turn young people into a course of reading different from the pomp and parade of romance-writing, and dismissing the improbable and marvellous, with which novels generally abound, might tend to promote the cause of religion and virtue.  

After Richardson started the work on 10 November 1739, his wife and her friends became so interested in the story that he finished it on 10 January 1740.   Pamela Andrews, the heroine of Pamela, represented "Richardson's insistence upon well-defined feminine roles" and was part of a common fear held during the 18th century that women were "too bold". In particular, her "zeal for housewifery" was included as a proper role of women in society.   Although Pamela and the title heroine were popular and gave a proper model for how women should act, they inspired "a storm of anti-Pamelas" (like Henry Fielding's Shamela and Joseph Andrews and Eliza Haywood's The Anti-Pamela) because the character "perfectly played her part". 

Later that year, Richardson printed Rivington and Osborn's book which inspired Pamela under the title of Letters written to and for particular Friends, on the most important Occasions. Directing not only the requisite Style and Forms to be observed in writing Familiar Letters; but how to think and act justly and prudently, in the common Concerns of Human Life.   The book contained many anecdotes and lessons on how to live, but Richardson did not care for the work and it was never expanded even though it went into six editions during his life.   He went so far as to tell a friend, "This volume of letters is not worthy of your perusal" because they were "intended for the lower classes of people". 

Multiple sequels to Pamela were written by other writers, such as Pamela’s Conduct in High Life, which was written by John Kelly and published by Ward and Chandler in September 1741. Published that same year were two anonymous sequels: Pamela in High Life and The Life of Pamela, the latter being a third-person retelling of both Richardson's original novel and Kelly's continuation. These unofficial sequels capitalized off the character’s popularity and readers desire to learn what happened to Pamela and Mr. B after the conclusion of Richardson’s novel. This compelled Richardson to write a sequel to the novel, Pamela in her Exalted Condition, in December 1741. The novel had a poorer reception than the first, as Peter Sabor writes, “the continuation is a far blander affair than the original work,” focusing on Pamela’s gentility and married life. The public's interest in the characters was waning, and this was only furthered by Richardson's focusing on Pamela discussing morality, literature, and philosophy.  

Later career

After the failures of the Pamela sequels, Richardson began to compose a new novel.   It was not until early 1744 that the content of the plot was known, and this happened when he sent Aaron Hill two chapters to read. In particular, Richardson asked Hill if he could help shorten the chapters because Richardson was worried about the length of the novel. Hill refused, saying,

You have formed a style, as much your property as our respect for what you write is, where verbosity becomes a virtue; because, in pictures which you draw with such a skilful negligence, redundance but conveys resemblance; and to contract the strokes, would be to spoil the likeness.  

In July, Richardson sent Hill a complete "design" of the story, and asked Hill to try again, but Hill responded, "It is impossible, after the wonders you have shown in Pamela, to question your infallible success in this new, natural, attempt" and that "you must give me leave to be astonished, when you tell me that you have finished it already".  However, the novel was not complete to Richardson's satisfaction until October 1746.   Between 1744 and 1746, Richardson tried to find readers who could help him shorten the work, but his readers wanted to keep the work in its entirety.   A frustrated Richardson wrote to Edward Young in November 1747:

What contentions, what disputes have I involved myself in with my poor Clarissa through my own diffidence, and for want of a will! I wish I had never consulted anybody but Dr. Young, who so kindly vouchsafed me his ear, and sometimes his opinion.  

Richardson did not devote all of his time just to working on his new novel, but was busy printing various works for other authors that he knew.[5]: 77  In 1742, he printed the third edition of Daniel Defoe's Tour through Great Britain. He filled his few further years with smaller works for his friends until 1748, when Richardson started helping Sarah Fielding and her friend Jane Collier to write novels.   By 1748, Richardson was so impressed with Collier that he accepted her as the governess to his daughters. In 1753, she wrote An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting with the help of Sarah Fielding and possibly James Harris or Richardson,: 46  and it was Richardson who printed the work.   But Collier was not the only author to be helped by Richardson, as he printed an edition of Young's Night Thoughts in 1749.

By 1748 his novel Clarissa was published in full: two volumes appeared in November 1747, two in April 1748 , and three in December 1748.   Unlike the novel, the author was not faring well at this time.   By August 1748, Richardson was in poor health.   He had a sparse diet that consisted mostly of vegetables and drinking vast amounts of water, and was not robust enough to prevent the effects of being bled upon the advice of various doctors throughout his life.   He was known for "vague 'startings' and 'paroxysms'", along with experiencing tremors.   Richardson once wrote to a friend that "my nervous disorders will permit me to write with more impunity than to read" and that writing allowed him a "freedom he could find nowhere else".[9]: 287 

However, his condition did not stop him from continuing to release the final volumes Clarissa after November 1748.   To Hill he wrote: "The Whole will make Seven; that is, one more to attend these two. Eight crouded into Seven , by a smaller Type. Ashamed as I am of the Prolixity, I thought I owed the Public Eight Vols. in Quantity for the Price of Seven".  Richardson later made it up to the public with "deferred Restorations" of the fourth edition of the novel being printed in larger print with eight volumes and a preface that reads: "It is proper to observe with regard to the present Edition that it has been thought fit to restore many Passages, and several Letters which were omitted in the former merely for shortening-sake."  

The response to the novel was positive, and the public began to describe the title heroine as "divine Clarissa".  It was soon considered Richardson's "masterpiece", his greatest work,   and was rapidly translated into Frenchin part or in full, for instance by the abbé Antoine François Prévost, as well as into German. The Dutch translator of Clarissa was the distinguished Mennonite preacher, Johannes Stinstra (1708–1790), who as a champion of Socinianism had been suspended from the ministry in 1742. This gave him sufficient leisure to translate Clarissa, which was published in eight volumes between 1752 –1755 . However, Stinstra later wrote in a letter to Richardson of 24 December 1753 that the translation had been "a burden too heavy for [his] shoulders". In England there was particular emphasis on Richardson's "natural creativity" and his ability to incorporate daily life experience into the novel.   However, the final three volumes were delayed, and many of the readers began to "anticipate" the concluding story and some demanded that Richardson write a happy ending. One such advocate of the happy ending was Henry Fielding, who had previously written Joseph Andrews to mock Richardson's Pamela.   Although Fielding was originally opposed to Richardson, Fielding supported the original volumes of Clarissa and thought a happy ending would be "poetical justice".  Those who disagreed included the Sussex diarist Thomas Turner, writing in about July 1754: "Clarissa Harlow, I look upon as a very well-wrote thing, tho' it must be allowed it is too prolix. The author keeps up the character of every person in all places; and as to the maner  of its ending , I like it better than if it had terminated in more happy consequences."

Others wanted Lovelace to be reformed and for him and Clarissa to marry, but Richardson would not allow a "reformed rake" to be her husband, and was unwilling to change the ending.   In a postscript to Clarissa, Richardson wrote:

if the temporary sufferings of the Virtuous and the Good can be accounted for and justified on Pagan principles, many more and infinitely stronger reasons will occur to a Christian Reader in behalf of what are called unhappy Catastrophes, from a consideration of the doctrine of future rewards; which is every where strongly enforced in the History of Clarissa.

Although few were bothered by the epistolary style, Richardson feels obliged to continue his postscript with a defence of the form based on the success of it in Pamela.  

However, some did question the propriety of having Lovelace, the villain of the novel, act in such an immoral fashion.   The novel avoids glorifying Lovelace, as Carol Flynn puts it, by damning his character with monitory footnotes and authorial intrusions, Richardson was free to develop in his fiction his villain's fantasy world. Schemes of mass rape would be legitimate as long as Richardson emphasized the negative aspects of his character at the same time. But Richardson still felt the need to respond by writing a pamphlet called Answer to the Letter of a Very Reverend and Worthy Gentleman.   In the pamphlet, he defends his characterizations and explains that he took great pains to avoid any glorification of scandalous behaviour, unlike the authors of many other novels that rely on characters of such low quality.  

In 1749, Richardson's female friends started asking him to create a male figure as virtuous as his heroines "Pamela" and "Clarissa" in order to "give the world his idea of a good man and fine gentleman combined".  Although he did not at first agree, he eventually complied, starting work on a book in this vein in June 1750.   Near the end of 1751, Richardson sent a draft of the novel The History of Sir Charles Grandison to Mrs. Donnellan, and the novel was being finalized in the middle of 1752.   When the novel was being printed in 1753, Richardson discovered that Irish printers were trying to pirate the work.   He immediately fired those he suspected of giving the printers advanced copies of Grandison and relied on multiple London printing firms to help him produce an authentic edition before the pirated version was sold.   The first four volumes were published on 13 November 1753, and in December the next two would follow.   The remaining volume was published in March to complete a seven-volume series while a six-volume set was simultaneously published, and these met with success.   In Grandison, Richardson was unwilling to risk having a negative response to any "rakish" characteristics that Lovelace embodied, and denigrated the immoral characters "to show those mischievous young admirers of Lovelace once and for all that the rake should be avoided".

Death

In his final years, Richardson received visits from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Secker, other important political figures, and many London writers. By that time, he enjoyed a high social position and was Master of the Stationers' Company. In early November 1754, Richardson and his family moved from the Grange to a home at Parsons Green, now in west London.   During this time Richardson received a letter from Samuel Johnson asking for money to pay a debt that Johnson was unable to afford.   On 16 March 1756, Richardson responded with more than enough money and their friendship was certain by this time.  

At the same time as he was associating with important figures of the day, Richardson's career as a novelist drew to a close. Grandison was his final novel, and he stopped writing fiction afterwards.   It was Grandison that set the tone for Richardson's followers after his death. However, he was continually prompted by various friends and admirers to continue to write along with suggested topics.   Richardson did not like any of the topics, and chose to spend all of his time composing letters to his friends and associates.   The only major work that Richardson would write would be A Collection of the Moral and Instruction Sentiments, Maxims, Cautions, and Reflexions, contained in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison.   Although it is possible that this work was inspired by Johnson asking for an "index rerum" for Richardson's novels , the Collection contains more of a focus on "moral and instructive" lessons than the index that Johnson sought.

After June 1758, Richardson began to suffer from insomnia, and in June 1761, he was afflicted with apoplexy.   This moment was described by his friend, Miss Talbot, on 2 July 1761:

Poor Mr. Richardson was seized on Sunday evening with a most severe paralytic stroke.... It sits pleasantly upon my mind, that the last morning we spent together was particularly friendly, and quiet, and comfortable. It was 28 May – he looked then so well! One has long apprehended some stroke of this kind; the disease made its gradual approaches by that heaviness which clouded the cheerfulness of his conversation, that used to be so lively and so instructive; by the increased tremblings which unfitted that hand so peculiarly formed to guide the pen; and by, perhaps, the querulousness of temper, most certainly not natural to so sweet and so enlarged a mind, which you and I have lately lamented, as making his family at times not so comfortable as his principles, his study, and his delight to diffuse happiness, wherever he could, would otherwise have done 

Two days later, aged 71, on 4 July 1761, Richardson died at Parsons Green and was buried at St. Bride's Church in Fleet Street near his first wife Martha.  

During Richardson's life, his printing press produced about 10,000 pieces, including novels, historical texts, Acts of Parliament, and newspapers, making his print house one of the most productive and diverse in the 18th century. He wanted to keep the press in his family, but after the death of his four sons and a nephew, his printing press would be left in his will to his only surviving male heir, a second nephew.   This happened to be a nephew whom Richardson did not trust, doubting his abilities as a printer.   Richardson's fears proved well-founded, for after his death the press stopped producing quality works and eventually stopped printing altogether.   Richardson owned copyrights to most of his works, and these were sold after his death,   in twenty-fourth share issues, with shares in Clarissa bringing in 25 pounds each and those for Grandison bringing in 20 pounds each. Shares in Pamela, sold in sixteenths, went for 18 pounds each.