Samuel Richardson

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Standard Name: Richardson, Samuel
SR 's three epistolary novels, published between 1740 and 1753, exerted an influence on women's writing which was probably stronger than that of any other novelist, male or female, of the century. He also facilitated women's literary careers in his capacity as member of the publishing trade, and published a letter-writing manual and a advice-book for printers' apprentices.
Stipple engraving of Samuel Richardson, used by Anna Letitia Barbauld in her edition of Richardson's correspondence. He is standing with his right hand tucked into his jacket and a book in his left hand; in the related painting by Joseph Highmore, Richardson holds a paper instead of a book.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Features Sophia Lee
The plot in some ways echoes that of Richardson 's Pamela. Cecilia Rivers, orphan daughter of a poor and saintly clergyman, comes down in the world and has to earn her living as a...
Textual Features Elizabeth Carter
As a youngster of twenty-one (in May 1739), EC addressed the eminent businessman Edward Cavebreezily, mingling the domestic and the literary.
qtd. in
Chisholm, Kate. “Bluestocking Feminism”. New Rambler, 2003, pp. 60-6.
63
In her mature correspondence with Elizabeth Montagu both writers discuss their...
Textual Features Lady Mary Walker
The title character, Eliza de Crui, sets the tone for discussion by writing from Brussels to Mrs Pierpont at Liège with the remark that, since it is so hard to say anything new, she will...
Textual Features Anita Brookner
AB addresses her topic with gusto: The slashing and irreverent critics, often totally unqualified and inaccurate, now stand before us slightly scarred by the verdicts of posterity.
Brookner, Anita. The Genius of the Future. Phaidon, 1971.
2
Not a historian of literature so much...
Textual Features Sue Townsend
Townsend expresses sympathy over what she assumes to have been the pain and humiliation caused to Sheridan and other women writers by compulsory anonymity.
Townsend, Sue, and Frances Sheridan. “Introduction”. Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph, Pandora Press, 1987, p. ix - xi.
ix
Being no scholar, she did not know how commonly authors...
Textual Features Eliza Kirkham Mathews
This novel, an interesting response to Samuel Richardson , is quite unlike any writing by EKM . Another novel by the same hand, Perplexities; or, The Fortunate Elopement, appeared by December 1794.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
1: 618
Textual Features Elizabeth Fenton
Fenton sets out to paint a a familiar picture of the everyday occurrences, manners, and habits of life of persons undistinguished either by wealth or fame
Fenton, Elizabeth. The Journal of Mrs. Fenton. Editor Lawrence, Sir Henry, Edward Arnold, 1901.
1-2
in British India. But this is largely unfulfilled...
Textual Features Jane Porter
JP opens her story in early 1792, on the eve of Poland's unsuccessful bid for independence in the Kościuszko Uprising, and continues it in London, which was beginning to function as a haven...
Textual Features Charlotte Lennox
Arabella is a reading heroine. Brought up on her dead mother's collection of French romances, she has been savouring a universal power over men, which exists only in her imagination. For this reason she scorns...
Textual Features Susan Smythies
An Advertisement to the Reader likens itself to a bill of fare or menu. SS launches a defence of novels, specifically novels by women, in notably low-key style. Admitting that she is now guilty of...
Textual Features Jane Johnson
She writes of women's virtues as domestic ones, and the family as the proper province for private women to shine in. Whyman likens her letters, in their aim and scope, to those of Richardson ...
Textual Features Jane Collier
The commonplace-book throws light on Collier's other extant writings as well. A casual mention of what Sally calls the Turba proves definitively that at least one neologism in The Cry stemmed not from her but...
Textual Features Sarah Scott
The French heroine tells her own life-story. Her mother dies at her birth. Among various persecutions, she is abducted and imprisoned in one of those rooms, not uncommonly found in old castles, where the owner...
Textual Features Alethea Lewis
She heads her novel with a prefatory letter to the Rev. William Johnstone , who, she says, has asked why she chooses to write fiction and not moral essays. She answers that novels offer opportunities...
Textual Features Anne Grant
AG is a conscious artist as a letter-writer, playing with the influence not only of Richardson but also, in later years, of Hugh Blair 's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. The earliest letters...

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