Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (Penguin Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Samuel Richardson (Author), Angus Ross (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0140432159 | ISBN-13: 978-0140432152 | Publication Date: January 1, 1995

‘Oh thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guilty hour, for a whole age of repentance!’

Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of marriage are accompanied by unwelcome and increasingly brutal sexual advances. And yet, Clarissa finds his charm alluring, her scrupulous sense of virtue tinged with unconfessed desire. Told through a complex series of interweaving letters, Clarissa is a richly ambiguous study of a fatally attracted couple and a work of astonishing power and immediacy. A huge success when it first appeared in 1747, and translated into French and German, it remains one of the greatest of all European novels.

In his introduction, Angus Ross examines characterization, the epistolary style, the role of the family and the position of women in Clarissa. This edition also includes a chronology, suggestions for further reading, tables of letters, notes, a glossary and an appendix on the music for the ‘Ode to Wisdom’.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Clarissa is one of the towering masterpieces of the eighteenth century, and it is impossible to understand the literature of the period and the rise of the novel without it. This new edition provides a rigorously conceived, expertly executed solution to the problem of abridgment, and restores to the undergraduate classroom a work previously excluded by sheer length." (Thomas Keymer )

"Arguably the best novel published in Great Britain in the eighteenth century and an undisputed landmark of European literature, Clarissa, at over a million words, is too long for the undergraduate classroom. Here, finally, is an abridgment that, while reducing its length, remains faithful to the spirit of the original. Based on the text of the third edition and judiciously edited by Toni Bowers and John Richetti, the Broadview Clarissa superbly fills a long-standing pedagogical need. With its excellent introduction, detailed notes, and generous background and contextual materials, this edition makes Richardson's masterpiece accessible to twenty-first century students." (Albert J. Rivero )

"Eager to introduce rather than replace a masterpiece, Richetti and Bowers offer a practical classroom compromise to the familiar problem of Richardson's prolixity. Surely an abridgment of this magnitude with its smart choice of the 1751 third edition as copy text, its accessible introduction and notes, and an appendix that resurrects important historical contexts will tempt new generations of readers to consider, eventually, all of Clarissa." (Janine Barchas ) --Janine Barchas --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

This classic novel tells the story, in letters, of the beautiful and virtuous Clarissa Harlowe's pursuit by the brilliant, unscrupulous rake Robert Lovelace. The epistolary structure allows Richardson to create layered and fully realized characters, as well as an intriguing uncertainty about the reliability of the various "narrators." Clarissa emerges as a heroine at once rational and passionate, self-sacrificing and defiant, and her story has gripped readers since the novel's first publication in 1747-1748. This new abridgment is designed to retain the novel's rich characterizations and relationships, and reproduces individual letters in their entirety whenever possible. This Broadview Edition provides a uniquely accessible entry point for readers, while retaining much of the powerful reading experience of the complete novel. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 1534 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140432159
• ISBN-13: 978-0140432152
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 2.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #82,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the Seminal Novels in English, September 27, 2001

By 

mp - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Samuel Richardson's massive 1747-8 novel, "Clarissa," is not only the longest novel I've ever read, but one of the best and most complex. Much like Richardson's first novel, "Pamela," "Clarissa" deals with the torments of a virtuous young lady abducted by a rake/libertine (in modern parlance, a rapist) who submits the heroine to a series of trials. Unlike Pamela, a lower class maiden, Clarissa is a member of an established and wealthy family. This change in social situation allows Richardson to explore a host of new issues, with the primary goal of moral didacticism remaining intact between the two.

Clarissa Harlowe, the most beautiful and exemplary of her sex, is being imposed upon by her implacable family to marry one Mr. Solmes, a man of no mean fortune, but whose ethics, especially with regard to his own family, are suspect. Simultaneously, Clarissa's sister, Arabella, has just rejected a proposal from one Robert Lovelace, the heir of a nobleman, educated and refined, but known for his libertinism - his tendency and enjoyment of seducing young women and then abandoning them. Lovelace falls in love, or in lust, with Clarissa, and after he and Clarissa's brother James, heir to the Harlowe fortune, engage in a near fatal duel, Clarissa's continued correspondence with Lovelace becomes a major thorn in the side of the Harlowes' plans for Clarissa. The Harlowes continue to urge the addresses of Mr. Solmes while vilifying Lovelace - Clarissa not approving of either - and when her family's insitence becomes insupportable to Clarissa, the utterly demonic Lovelace takes advantage, whisking her away from a seemingly inevitable union with Solmes. Thus begins an absolutely terrifying journey for Clarissa through the darkness of humanity, as Lovelace plots and executes his seduction of the 'divine' Clarissa.

An epistolary novel, "Clarissa" is written in the form of a series of letters spanning nine months, principally between Clarissa and her best friend and iconoclast, Anna Howe, and between Lovelace and a fellow libertine, John Belford. Richardson's 'to the moment' style of writing gives a minute account of everything that happens to the main characters almost as it happens, giving the novel a highly dramatic sense of urgency. The four major correspondents, as well as others, also give the novel a well-developed sense of perspective, as we get not only the events, but biased opinions and readings of all the other characters, making the events at times difficult to follow, but at the same time, marvelously rich and complex.

Some of the most interesting facets of this novel are its interactions with the law, primarily inheritance law, the contrast between history and story, and at the forefront, the debate over gender roles in marriage. Almost of a piece with the novel's legal issues, Richardson examines the vagueries of semantics - what do words mean? How are words regarded and used differently by men and women? Richardson also confronts the way we read and interpret 'truth' - in a book composed of letters, subjectively written and read, where can we look to for 'truth'?

Among the characters in the novel, by far the most captivating and challenging in "Clarissa" is the aforementioned Anna Howe. The ways she clashes with tradition and propriety throughout the novel are entertaining, and very much reminiscent of the eponymous heroine of Defoe's "Moll Flanders." An amazing and influential novel to say the least, anyone with a few weeks on their hands who is interested in the history of the novel in English should pick up and give "Clarissa" some serious attention, stat!

67 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read the UNABRIDGED Clarissa!, May 15, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

The UNABRIDGED Clarissa (Penguin ed.) is a powerful, moving eighteenth-century English masterpiece, the first great psychological novel. Its length may seem daunting and it does take at least six weeks to read, but you will be rewarded by finding yourself immersed in the minds of Clarissa and Lovelace. You will feel as though you are living in their world, facing their moral dilemmas, deciding on courses of action, predicting consequences. However, if you accidentally pick up the Sherburn ABRIDGEMENT of Clarissa, you will NOT be able to savor Richardson's famous "writing to the moment." If you doubt me, take a look at Mary Anne Doody and Florian Stuber's article, "Clarissa Censored," in the journal Modern Language Studies (1988). The abridgement is a travesty of Richardson's greatest novel.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a book to be read in abridgement--be patient!, March 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Once you've read this book, you can barely read anything written in England post-1750 without finding and feeling Richardson's influence. An English epic, a sometimes infuriatingly detailed exploration of men and women under pressure, a masterfully crafted depiction of bewilderment, betrayal, and the kind of religious ecstasy that's difficult to read. Don't miss Letter 246. Stay with this book, even if it takes you weeks (it took me 7)--it's well worth it, a one-of-a-kind reading experience.