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
Literary responses Frances Sheridan
The novel in its first form was hugely successful: it brought FS instant fame. Johnson teasingly expressed doubts about her moral right to make your readers suffer so much.
qtd. in
Sheridan, Frances. “Introduction”. Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph, edited by Jean Coates Cleary et al., World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, 1995.
xi
Boswell praised the Christian morality...
Literary responses Clara Reeve
The Critical Review evaluated this novel respectfully, calling it pleasing and interesting, but John Noorthouck , writing in the Monthly, dismissed it impatiently as one of the regrettably numerous progeny of Samuel Richardson .
qtd. in
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
1: 544
Literary responses Marie-Catherine d' Aulnoy
Bibliographer Melvin D. Palmer assigns to these an important place in the history of French-English prose fiction in the formative years that saw the rise of the modern novel.
Palmer, Melvin D. “Madame d’Aulnoy in England”. Comparative Literature, Vol.
27
, 1975, pp. 237-53.
237
He writes that MCA offers...
Literary responses Mary Chandler
Her poem played its part in the establishment of Bath as a resort which was respected and fashionable, on both medical and cultural grounds. When James Leake published a revised edition of A Tour of...
Literary responses Charlotte McCarthy
Jerry C. Beasley is fairly scathing about this book in his survey of the decade's fiction. Framing Samuel Richardson 's Pamela as the literary prototype, Beasley describes CMC 's novel as a comparatively plodding tale...
Literary responses Françoise de Graffigny
The novel's combination of originality and popularity at once provoked debate. Like Samuel Richardson (who began publishing Clarissa in the year of Lettres d'une Péruvienne), FGreceived numerous letters from readers who begged her...
Literary responses Elizabeth Meeke
Literary historian Edward Copeland points out that the hero and the Wheelers are opposites in their relation to money, and also that Mrs Wheeler's death (in hospital of injuries received from falling downstairs while drunk)...
Literary responses Frances Brooke
Highly positive reviews included one from Voltaire in France suggesting that this was the finest epistolary novel to appear in English during the decade or so since the last work of Richardson .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
The Critical...
Literary responses Charlotte Lennox
The Monthly Review called the first two volumes very judicious and truly critical.
Griffiths, Ralph, 1720 - 1803, and George Edward Griffiths, editors. Monthly Review. R. Griffiths.
9: 145
CL later wrote that the work had been received with very general favour
Isles, Duncan. “The Lennox Collection (Concluded)”. Harvard Library Bulletin, Vol.
19
, No. 4, Oct. 1971, pp. 416-35.
422
and was translated into German...
Literary responses Margaret Minifie
The Critical belatedly noted: She is now no longer in partnership, but sets up for herself.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
50 (1780): 168
It approved the novel's morally didactic tone, its style, characters, and narrative, but warned that it...
Literary responses Frances Brooke
She thought it had been too long, with too little plot, and that the subscription method had not been to its benefit. Critic Juliet McMaster believes that Jane Austen had Emily Montague in mind in...
Literary responses Susan Smythies
The Critical Review noted that SS was imitating Richardson in this novel (as she had imitated Fielding in her last). In The Brothers it found all the machinery of a modern novel, without the overall...
Literary responses Sarah Scott
Samuel Richardson (given an advance copy by the publisher) reported the verdict of his wife and daughters, and the writer Jane Collier (a friend particularly of his daughter Anne ), that the book was lacking...
Literary responses Eliza Haywood
In the Monthly Review, Ralph Griffiths passed a judgement which was inflected against Betsy Thoughtless by issues of gender. He guessed that the author was female because of the novel's attention to matters of...
Literary responses Lady Charlotte Bury
Edward Copeland argues that this text, though designed to ride the wave of the new silver-fork novel, draws its influences from an earlier generation: Frances Burney , Susan Ferrier , and Richardson 's Sir Charles...

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