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The Composition of Clarissa and Its Revision Before Publication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

T. C. Duncan Eaves  and
Ben D. Kimpel
T. C. Duncan Eaves
Affiliation:
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Ben D. Kimpel
Affiliation:
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
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Abstract

As a detailed chronology of the composition demonstrates, Richardson revised Clarissa carefully and thoroughly before its first publication and consulted several of his friends about it, but his correspondence does not show that he changed his basic plan or took advice from anyone on important matters. The first extant references to the novel are in letters from Edward Young and Aaron Hill in June and July 1744. By this time the general plan of the novel was fixed and a first version may have been already completed. It was certainly completed early in 1746. By that time Richardson had begun an extensive revision, and before publication he revised once again. A study of his revisions shows that he was especially concerned about reducing the length of his book, and he also blackened the character of Lovelace, tried to clarify the motives of his characters, and elevated his language.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 83 , Issue 2 , May 1968 , pp. 416 - 428
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1968

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References

1 Chapel Hill, N.C., 1936, pp. 120–127.

2 New Haven, Conn., 1936, pp. 48–50.

3 PQ, xliv (1966), 236–238.

4 Monthly Magazine, xxxvi (1813), 418–419.

5 The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, ed. Anna Laetitia Barbauld (London, 1804), i, 101–102. Hereafter cited as Correspondence.

6 Letter to Johannes Stinstra, 2 June 1753, original in the City Archives of Amsterdam.

7 N.d. (April-Oct. 1751), Correspondence, vi, 117.

8 Letter to Lady Bradshaigh, 5 Oct. 1753, Forster MS (Victoria and Albert Museum), xi, foil. 30–31. The Forster Collection of manuscripts is hereafter cited as FM.

9 Manuscript in the Pierpont Morgan Library; partly printed in Correspondence, v, 301–348.

10 Manuscript owned by Alan Dugald McKillop.

11 Monthly Magazine, xxxvi (1813), 419–420. Richardson's reply to Young's letter is undated; Young's reply to Richard-son's is dated “Dec.”

12 1S Dated “1745/6” in another hand, FM, xiii, 3, fol. 37, and Hill's Works, 2nd ed. (London, 1854), ii, 300. References to Columella in Hill's letters of 4 April and 19 April and in this letter indicate May or June as the probable date. Hill's Works are hereafter cited as Works.

13 N.d. (mid-1745), Works, ii, 301.

14 FM, xiii, 2, foil. 61–62, and Correspondence, I, 97.

15 Monthly Magazine, xxxvi (1813), 422.

16 N.d., Monthly Magazine, xxxvi (1813), 423. This letter is placed among the 1745 letters, but a reference in it to Caroline Lee makes 1746 the more probable date.

17 Monthly Magazine, xxxvii (1814), 138.

18 15 Dec. 1748, FM, xi, fol. 9, and Correspondence, iv, 234.

19 26 Jan. 1747, FM, xiii, 3, fol. 88.

20 Monthly Magazine, xxxvii (1814), 139–140.

21 13 Oct., original in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

22 Richardson to Miss Wescomb, 15 Nov., European Mag-azine, LILT (1808), 370–371.

23 European Magazine, LUI (1808), 371–372, 429.

24 FM, xiv, 3, foil. 2–3. The letter is dated 1746, but Miss Wescomb was slow to change years. Her first letter to Rich-ardson is dated 22 August 1746 (FM, xiv, 3, foil. 9–10).

25 23 Jan. 1747, FM, xiii, 3, fol. 82.

26 5 Jan. 1747, FM, xiii, 3, fol. 81.

27 See T. C. Duncan Eaves and Ben D. Kimpel, “Richard-son's Revisions of Pamela,” SB, xx (1967), 61–88.

28 FM, xiii, 3, foil. 85–88, and (tie ending of the letter) FM, xvi, 1, fol. 36.

29 Monthly Magazine, xxxvii (1814), 141–142.

30 N.d. (Autumn 1747?), FM, xv, 2, fol. 86.

31 Monthly Magazine, xxxvii (1814), 327.

32 Correspondence, ii, 319–322. A draft of this letter is in the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Yale University Library.

33 Shakespeare Head edition (Oxford, 1930–31), iii, 231–239. Unless otherwise indicated, references to Clarissa are tothis edition.

34 Monthly Magazine, xxxvii (1814), 327.

35 FM, xiii, 3, foil. 95–96, and Works, II, 302.

36 FM, xi, fol. 1. No addressee is given, but a remark about“Geography” answers Hill's letter of 5 May.

37 Moore to Richardson, FM, XV, 2, fol. 17.

38 Original owned by Edward L. McAdam. See also McAdam's “A New Letter from Fielding,” Yale Review, XXXVIII (1949), 304.

39 Thomas Edwards to Richardson, 2 December 1748, FM, xii, 1, fol. 4, and Bodleian MS. 1011, fol. 76.

40 FM, xiii, 3, fol. 146, and Works, ii, 332.

41 Dated “1748–9” (mid-1748) and signed “Orthodoxus Anglicanus,” Correspondence, II, 327–332.

42 18 Dec. 1748, original in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. The letter is printed in the Monthly Magazine, xxxiii (1812), S34.

43 15 Dec. 1748, FM, xi, fol. 8.

44 7 Jan. 1750, Monthly Magazine, xxxvii (1814), 328.

45 “Clarissa Restored?” RES, N.S., x (1959), 156–171.