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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, with journals and magazines. Richardson
lost his first wife along with their five sons, and eventually
remarried. Although with his second wife he had four daughters who lived
to become adults, they had no male heir to continue running the
printing business. While his print shop slowly ran down, at the age of
51 he wrote his first novel and
immediately became one of the most popular and admired writers of his
time. He knew leading figures in 18th century England, including Samuel Johnson and Sarah Fielding. In the London literary world, he was a rival of Henry Fielding, and the two responded to each other's literary styles in their own novels. Richardson
has been one of the authors of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list
established by the pope containing the names of books that Catholics
were not allowed to read. Richardson, one of nine children, was probably born in 1689 in Mackworth, Derbyshire, to Samuel and Elizabeth Richardson. It is unsure where in Derbyshire he was born because Richardson always concealed the location. The older Richardson was, according to the younger: His
mother, according to Richardson, "was also a good woman, of a family
not ungenteel; but whose father and mother died in her infancy, within
half - an - hour of each other, in the London pestilence of 1665". The
trade his father pursued was that of a joiner (a type of carpenter, but
Richardson explains that it was "then more distinct from that of a
carpenter than now it is with us"). In
describing his father's occupation, Richardson stated that "he was a
good draughtsman and understood architecture", and it was suggested by
Samuel Richardson's son - in - law that the senior Richardson was a
cabinetmaker and an exporter of mahogany while working at
Aldersgate - street. The abilities and position of his father brought him to the attention of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth. However this, as Richardson claims, was to Richardson senior's "great detriment" because of the failure of the Monmouth Rebellion,
which ended in the death of Scott in 1685. After Scott's death, the
elder Richardson was forced to abandon his business in London and live a
modest life in Derbyshire. The Richardsons were not exiled forever from London; they eventually returned, and the young Richardson was educated at Christ's Hospital grammar school. The extent that he was educated at the school is uncertain, and Leigh Hunt wrote years later: However,
this conflicts with Richardson's nephew's account that "'it is certain
that [Richardson] was never sent to a more respectable seminary' than 'a
private grammar school" located in Derbyshire". Little is known of Richardson's early years beyond the few things that Richardson was willing to share. Although
he was not forthcoming with specific events and incidents, he did talk
about the origins of his writing ability; Richardson would tell stories
to his friends and spent his youth constantly writing letters. One
such letter, written when Richardson was almost 11, was directed to a
woman in her 50s who was in the habit of constantly criticizing others.
"Assuming the style and address of a person in years", Richardson
cautioned her about her actions. However, his handwriting was used to determine that it was his work, and the woman complained to his mother. The
result was, as he explains, that "my mother chid me for the freedom
taken by such a boy with a woman of her years" but also "commended my
principles, though she censured the liberty taken". After his writing ability was known, he began to help others in the community write letters. In
particular, Richardson, at the age of thirteen, helped many of the
girls that he associated with to write responses to various love letters
they received. As
Richardson claims, "I have been directed to chide, and even repulse,
when an offence was either taken or given, at the very time that the
heart of the chider or repulser was open before me, overflowing with
esteem and affect". Although
this helped his writing ability, he in 1753 advised the Dutch minister
Stinstra not to draw large conclusions from these early actions: He continued to explain that he did not fully understand females until writing Clarissa, and these letters were only a beginning.
The
elder Richardson originally wanted his son to become a clergyman, but
he was not able to afford the education that the younger Richardson
would require, so he let his son pick his own profession. He selected the profession of printing because he hoped to "gratify a thirst for reading, which, in after years, he disclaimed". At
the age of seventeen, in 1706, Richardson was bound in seven year
apprenticeship under John Wilde as a printer. Wilde's printing shop was
in Golden Lion Court on Aldersgate Street, and Wilde had a reputation as
"a master who grudged every hour... that tended not to his profit". While
working for Wilde, he met a rich gentleman who took an interest in
Richardson's writing abilities and the two began to correspond with each
other. When the gentleman died a few years later, Richardson lost a
potential patron, which delayed his ability to pursue his own writing
career. He decided to devote himself completely to his apprenticeship,
and he worked his way up to a position as a compositor and a corrector
of the shop's printing press. In 1713, Richardson left Wilde to become "Overseer and Corrector of a Printing - Office". This meant that Richardson ran his own shop, but the location of that shop is unknown. It is possible that the shop was located in Staining Lane or may have been jointly run with John Leake in Jewin Street. In
1719, Richardson was able to take his freedom from being an apprentice
and was soon able to afford to set up his own printing shop, which he
did after he moved near the Salisbury Court district close to Fleet
Street. Although
he claimed to business associates that he was working out of the
well known Salisbury Court, his printing shop was more accurately
located on the corner of Blue Ball Court and Dorset Street in a house
that later became Bell's Building. On
23 November 1721 Richardson married Martha Wilde, the daughter of his
former employer. The match was "prompted mainly by prudential
considerations", although Richardson would claim later that there was a
strong love affair between him and Martha. He soon brought her to live with him in the printing shop that served also as his home. A
key moment in Richardson's career came on 6 August 1722 when he took on
his first apprentices: Thomas Gover, George Mitchell, and Joseph
Chrichley. He
would later take on William Price (2 May 1727), Samuel Jolley (5
September 1727), Bethell Wellington (2 September 1729), and Halhed
Garland (5 May 1730). One of Richardson's first major printing contracts came in June of 1723 when he began to print the bi-weekly The True Briton for Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton.
This was a Jacobite political paper which attacked the government and
was soon censored for printing "common libels". However, Richardson's
name was not on the publication, and he was able to escape any of the
negative fallout, although it is possible that Richardson participated
in the papers as far as actually authoring one himself. The only lasting effect from the paper would be the incorporation of
Wharton's libertine characteristics in the character of Lovelace in
Richardson's Clarissa, although Wharton would be only one of many models of libertine behaviour that Richardson would find in his life. In 1724, Richardson befriended Thomas Gent, Henry Woodfall, and Arthur Onslow, the latter of those would become the Speaker of the House of Commons. Over
their ten years of marriage, the Richardsons had five sons and one
daughter, and three of the boys were named Samuel after their father,
but all of the boys died after just a few years. Soon after William,
their fourth child, died, Martha died on 25 January 1731. Their youngest
son, Samuel, was to live past his mother for a year longer, but
succumbed to illness in 1732. After his final son died, Richardson
attempted to move on with his life; he married Elizabeth Leake and the
two moved into another house on Blue Ball Court. However, Elizabeth and
his daughter were not the only ones living with him since Richardson
allowed five of his apprentices to lodge in his home. Elizabeth
had six children (five daughters and one son) with Richardson; four of
their daughters, Mary, Martha, Anne, and Sarah, reached adulthood and
survived their father. Their son, another Samuel, was born in 1739 and died in 1740.
In 1733, Richardson was granted a contract with the House of Commons, with help from Onslow, to print the Journals of the House. The twenty - six volumes of the work soon improved his business. Later in 1733, he wrote The Apprentice’s Vade Mecum, urging young men like himself to be diligent and self - denying. The work was intended to "create the perfect apprentice". Written
in response to the "epidemick Evils of the present Age", the text is
best known for its condemnation of popular forms of entertainment
including theatres, taverns and gambling. The
manual targets the apprentice as the focal point for the moral
improvement of society, not because he is most susceptible to vice, but
because, Richardson suggests, he is more responsive to moral improvement
than his social betters. During
this time, Richardson took on five more apprentices: Thomas Verren (1
August 1732), Richard Smith (6 February 1733), Matthew Stimson (7 August
1733), Bethell Wellington (7 May 1734), and Daniel Green (1 October
1734). His
total staff during the 1730s numbered 7, as his first three apprentices
were free by 1728, and two of his apprentices, Verren and Smith, died
soon into their apprenticeship. The
loss of Verren was particularly devastating to Richardson because
Verren was his nephew and his hope for a male heir that would take over
the press.
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. 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 English novel". Richardson explained the origins of the work: 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) 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". In September 1741, a sequel of Pamela called Pamela's Conduct in High Life was published by Ward and Chandler. Although
the work lacks the literary merits of the original, Richardson was
compelled to publish two more volumes in December 1741 to tell of
further exploits of Pamela, the title heroine, while "in her Exalted
Condition". 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. 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, 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 wasn't 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: 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. In 1742, he printed the third edition of Daniel Defoe's Tour through Great Britain. He filled his new few 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, 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
vasts amount 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". 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 French in part or in full, for instance by the abbé Antoine François Prévost, as well as into German. 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". 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: Although
few were bothered by the epistolary style, Richardson feels obligated
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, 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 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". In his final years, Richardson received visits from Archbishop 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 Parson's Green. It was during this time that Richardson received a letter from Samuel Johnson asking for money to pay for 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. 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: Two
days later, on 4 July 1761, Richardson died at Parson's Green and was
buried at St. Bride's church near his first wife Martha. During Richardson's life, his printing press produced about 2,349 items. 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 that Richardson did not trust; he doubted the younger man's abilities as a printer. Richardson's
fears proved well founded, for after his death the press stopped
producing quality works and eventually stopped printing all together. Richardson owned copyrights to most of his works, and these were sold after his death. They were sold in twenty - fourth shares, 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. Richardson was a skilled letter writer and his talent traces back to his childhood. Throughout his whole life, he would constantly write to his various associates. Richardson
had a "faith" in the act of letter writing, and believed that letters
could be used to accurately portray character traits. He quickly adopted the epistolary novel form,
which granted him "the tools, the space, and the freedom to develop
distinctly different characters speaking directly to the reader". The characters of Pamela, Clarissa, and Grandison are
revealed in a personal way, with the first two using the epistolary
form for "dramatic" purposes, and the last for "celebratory" purposes. In his first novel, Pamela,
he explored the various complexities of the title character's life, and
the letters allow the reader to witness her develop and progress over
time. The novel was an experiment, but it allowed Richardson to create a complex heroine through a series of her letters. When Richardson wrote Clarissa,
he had more experience in the form and expanded the letter writing to
four different correspondents, which created a complex system of
characters encouraging each other to grow and develop over time. However, the villain of the story, Lovelace, is also involved in the letter writing, and this leads to tragedy. Leo Braudy described the benefits of the epistolary form of Clarissa as, "Language can work: letters can be ways to communicate and justify". By the time Richardson writes Grandison,
he transforms the letter writing from telling of personal insights and
explaining feelings into a means for people to communicate their
thoughts on the actions of others and for the public to celebrate
virtue. The letters are no longer written for a few people, but are passed along in order for all to see. |