clarissa or the history of a young lady by samuel richardson

With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. 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.'įor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. In his introduction, Angus Ross examines characterization, the epistolary style, the role of the family and the position of women in Clarissa. 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. 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. And yet, Clarissa finds his charm alluring, her scrupulous sense of virtue tinged with unconfessed desire. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of marriage are accompanied by unwelcome and increasingly brutal sexual advances.

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. 'Oh thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guilty hour, for a whole age of repentance!' It’s a semester’s worth of discussion at least.Clarissa is one of the grand masterpieces of European literature I bet there are college classes devoted all to this one book. A person who reads contemporary works only might give up on it because it probably could be told in a more shortened novel or be frustrated by Clarissa, wondering why she makes such choices when we recognize the danger (not blaming her but one might say, “Gah! Saw that coming!”) Looking at when it was written, I just wanted the young woman to find her happily-ever-after, and my modern sensibilities were disappointed knowing I was not going to get that payoff in the end. For whatever reason, hearing the language made me more engaged.Īnyway. I thought it tedious and long and I didn’t like Emma (just like I found Clarissa self-absorbed, too dramatic, and “poor me“ after a while), I found Emma easier to read after I listened to it in audio. Kinda like years ago when I could not finish Austen’s Emma. I also felt that reading the Spark notes has helped me understand the book and maybe appreciate the author’s intent better.

This may be the longest book I have ever read. Warning: Richardson has dark themes (suicide, rape).

Clarissa or the history of a young lady by samuel richardson