Samuel Richardson

English novelist

• Born: August 19, 1689
• Birthplace: Mackworth, Derbyshire, England
• Died: July 4, 1761
• Place of death: London, England

Richardson, a successful London printer, wrote one of the earliest English novels, Pamela. Its successor, Clarissa, is often regarded as the first work of psychological fiction in English. Through these works Richardson influenced the development of the psychologically focused novel throughout Europe.

Early Life

Samuel Richardson was one of eight surviving children, born to a father whose support of the Jacobites may have been the reason for the family’s flight from London shortly before Samuel was born. The family returned to live in London before the end of the century, settling in a working-class neighborhood. Richardson’s father was a tradesman, and although Samuel wished to enter the ministry, limited family funds kept him from pursuing that career. Instead, partly because he was a voracious reader in his youth, he found the printing trade amenable to his interests.

In 1706, he was apprenticed to Jonathan Wilde, a printer and member of the Stationer’s Company. By 1715, Richardson had risen to become a freeman in the company. Early evidence of his skill as a writer can be seen in the work he took on during the little time he had for himself while living and working at Wilde’s establishment. By age thirteen he was already assisting young women by writing love letters on their behalf. By 1721 he was able to leave Wilde’s business to establish his own printing shop, and in the same year he married Martha Wilde, his employer’s daughter.

Life’s Work

Unlike many writers of his day, Samuel Richardson worked his entire life at a trade. Long before he thought up the scheme that led to the production of his first novel, he was establishing himself as a printer of some note, and some notoriety. He was a favorite printer of Tory political writers, and he had a hand in producing a number of political pamphlets and newspapers, including the True Briton and Mist’s Weekly Journal. Writers of both publications were eventually pursued by the Whig government for various charges of slander and sedition, and Richardson himself was often under a cloud of suspicion for his activities.

At home Richardson suffered the disappointments common in so many eighteenth century households. None of the children of his marriage to Martha Wilde survived infancy, and Martha died in 1731. Two years later Richardson married Elizabeth Leake, with whom he had four daughters who outlived him. His printing business allowed him to provide for his family while building a circle of influential and noted acquaintances, a group that expanded exponentially after the publication of the first English novel, Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740-1741). In his early years in the trade, however, he could count among his acquaintances few literary figures, with the exception of the poet Aaron Hill, whose lifelong friendship he cherished.

During the 1720’s and 1730’s, Richardson was busy at his print shop assisting writers such as Daniel Defoe in bringing their work before the public. In 1730 he issued a work of his own, The Apprentice’s Vade Mecum: Or, Young Man’s Pocket Companion, a conduct book offering advice to young men entering a trade. Its moralizing tone suggests the direction Richardson’s later work would take. He also issued a version of Aesop’s Fables in 1739, revising the morals of several tales to be more suitable for English readers. In 1733 he received an important commission from the House of Commons to handle its printing needs. While he frequently had trouble collecting on his bills, he was then in a position of prominence in his trade, and it was not surprising that he rose through various offices in the Stationer’s Company, eventually becoming master of the company in 1754.

Sometime before 1740, Richardson was asked to produce a book of letters that could be used as samples for those who needed assistance in corresponding about social and family matters. His penchant for storytelling soon led him to produce quite another work from this germ of an idea: the tale of a servant girl who resists her master’s sexual advances until he agrees to marry her. Issued in four volumes, Pamela questioned the separation of social classes and highlighted the moral rectitude that, in Richardson’s view at least, was expected of people of all classes. The work caused a sensation in London; within months it was the talk of literary circles in Europe as well.

Pamela went through multiple editions, and suddenly Richardson was sought by ladies of social distinction for his advice, or simply for his friendship. French and German translations appeared and several adaptations were produced, including plays by Voltaire in France and Carlo Goldoni in Italy. Not all were pleased with Richardson’s work, however. Henry Fielding, a successful playwright and political writer, savaged the work in a burlesque called An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (1741) and produced his own version of the proper relationship between conduct and morality in the novel The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams (1742), a story in which characters from Pamela play a prominent role.

Richardson became a sensation at home and abroad. Urged by his new, larger circle of friends, he began writing a new novel in letters, what was to become one of the longest novels in the English language. This time, the novel had a tragic ending. Published in seven volumes in 1747-1748, Clarissa: Or, The History of a Young Lady is a story that parallels the events of Pamela, but the heroine’s virtuous conduct and her decision to die rather than submit to her master leads to an inevitable tragic conclusion. The psychological realism Richardson achieves in his portraits of Clarissa and her seducer, Lovelace, appealed to readers who became emotionally involved in this tale of rape and abandonment.

Buoyed by the encouragement and advice of a group of admirers such as Lady Bradshaigh (Dorothy Bellingham), Sarah Wescomb, the writer Elizabeth Carter, Hester Chapone, and Fielding’s sister Sarah, Richardson attempted to capitalize on his success in writing about virtuous women by composing a story about a good man. Sir Charles Grandison, a multivolume tale that parallels the story of Clarissa by exposing the many temptations faced by a man of character, was published in 1753-1754. The novel was not as well received by the general public, but still it added to Richardson’s stature as a literary figure.

In 1752, even before he published his third novel, Richardson was able to use the profits from his literary ventures to build a new printing establishment at White Lyon Court off Fleet Street in London. After the publication of Sir Charles Grandison, Richardson spent most of his time revising his works and extracting from them moral sentiments that he published in pamphlets for readers avid to learn the life lessons his fictional characters had to offer them. He died in July, 1761, and was buried beside his wife at St. Bride’s Church in London.

Significance

Had he merely remained a printer, Samuel Richardson might still have been remembered for his activity in bringing out political pamphlets, supporting other writers, and issuing materials for the House of Commons. His decision to turn a series of model letters into a story celebrating conventional virtues, however, assured him a place of prominence in literary annals. Pamela, regarded by many as the first novel in English (although Daniel Defoe’s 1719 Robinson Crusoe contends for the honor), and Clarissa, considered by many the first work to exploit the psychological dimensions of character, became models for a generation of novelists who shaped the genre in England and throughout Europe.

Furthermore, the high-minded moral tone of Richardson’s three novels led to a reaction by writers such as Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, and Laurence Sterne, early exponents of a more naturalistic view of human nature. Although the epistolary form did not remain popular beyond the eighteenth century, the immediacy with which readers came to know characters through this technique demonstrated how a skilled writer might use fiction to accomplish what Samuel Johnson, Richardson’s contemporary and friend, called the function of great literature: to teach by delighting. Richardson’s greatest accomplishment, however, may lie in his ability to shift readers’ interest away from action and plot to a more “sophisticated” interest in characterization—a hallmark of the modern novel since the publication of Pamela in 1740-1741.

Bibliography

Blewett, David, ed. Passion and Virtue: Essays on the Novels of Samuel Richardson. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Blewett, editor of Eighteenth-Century Fiction, brings together the work of thirteen scholars who provide fresh insights into Richardson’s achievement as a novelist by applying techniques of late twentieth century critical theory to an examination of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison.

Brophy, Elizabeth Bergen. Samuel Richardson. Boston: Twayne, 1987. Brophy’s brief overview of Richardson’s life and career offers an analysis of the influence of his three novels on the British reading public and examines his reputation among his contemporaries and succeeding generations.

Carroll, John, ed. Samuel Richardson: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. This collection reprints some of the best criticism written during the first half of the twentieth century. The critics explain the complexities of psychological realism that characterize Richardson’s novels and examine his appeal to his contemporaries.

Eaves, T. C. Duncan, and Ben Kimpel. Samuel Richardson: A Biography. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1971. In this standard twentieth century critical biography of the novelist, Eaves and Kimpel make extensive use of manuscript sources, memoirs, newspapers, periodicals, and other printed sources to develop a comprehensive portrait of the influential printer and novelist.

Hannaford, Richard Gordon. Samuel Richardson: An Annotated Bibliography of Critical Studies. New York: Garland, 1980. A comprehensive, though somewhat dated, annotated bibliography of works exploring Richardson’s novels and other writings.

Rivero, Albert J. New Essays on Samuel Richardson. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. The thirteen essays in this volume provide a critical examination of Richardson’s novels through the multiple lenses of modern critical theories. The essay on the novelist’s correspondence with his Dutch translator Johannes Stinstra is especially valuable for its insight into the way Richardson’s morality influenced his depiction of character in his work.