Loading Search

• Buy this Book
• Book Creators
• Related Blog Posts
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1899. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... Chapter IV THE WORK OF SAMUEL RICHARDSON I. Defects of Richardson's novels--Reasons for their success--Wherein they are opposed to classical art. II. Wherein the realism of the author of Clarissa ... More

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1899. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... Chapter IV THE WORK OF SAMUEL RICHARDSON I. Defects of Richardson's novels--Reasons for their success--Wherein they are opposed to classical art. II. Wherein the realism of the author of Clarissa Harlowe consists--His lack of distinction--His brutality--His power. III. Richardson a delineator of character--He is an inferior painter of the manners of good society, and an excellent painter of middle-class manners: Lovelace, Pamela, Clarissa. IV. His moral ideas; his preaching--Taste for casuistry and the discussion of moral problems. V. His sensibility--The place of love in his works--Emotional gifts. VI. Magnitude of the revolution effected by Richardson in the art of fiction. I To-day the works of Richardson are entirely forgotten. Of these once famous novels the public no longer knows anything beyond the titles. Even the critics scarcely pay any attention to the man who was considered the greatest of all English writers in point of pathos,1 and if Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield and Robinson Crusoe are still read, Clarissa Harlowe is read no more than CUlie or Le Grand Cyrus. This neglect may be explained, but it cannot be justified. Richardson's work must always be of the highest importance in the history of fiction, by reason of the magnitude of the revolution he effected. His very faults even, obvious as they are, stamp him with originality. We can imagine the shock it would give, not Voltaire or 1 No satisfactory monograph on Richardson exists. The principal source of information concerning him is Mrs Barbauld's collection: Life and Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, 1806, 6 vols. 8vo. The best study of his work as a whole is that by Mr Leslie Stephen, in his Hours in a Library. Sir Walter Scott's study should also be consulted. Marivaux only, but also ...

You must be a member of JacketFlap to add a video to this page. Please Log In or Register.