The complete online text of Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 3 by Samuel Richardson.

The English novelist Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) brought dramatic intensity and psychological insight to the epistolary novel. Fiction, including the novel told in letters, had become popular in England before Samuel Richardson's time, but he was the f...

Samuel Richardson, often in his own time compared to Shakespeare for universality, originality, and emotional truth, is generally acknowledged as the founder of a new school of novel writing in England. The new novel had its origins partly in English dom...

Samuel Richardson, often in his own time compared to Shakespeare for universality, originality, and emotional truth, is generally acknowledged as the founder of a new school of novel writing in England. The new novel had its origins partly in English dom...

NATIVE ARTS A MULTI-TALENTED ARTIST EXPLORES NORTHWEST COAST IMAGERY Clarissa Hudson grew up outdoors, spending long hours in her father's fishing boat basking in the vastness and the sudden, dramatic storms of the open waters around her hometown of Juneau, AK If...

SHORTLY AFTER her first bout with cancer, in 1995 Clarissa Luard joined the Arts Council of England as a literature officer. Three days before her death, on 1 November she was promoted to senior literature officer. For the writers, editors and publishers who...

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, by Vendela Vida. Ecco, 226 pages, $23.95. The impulse to lump these two novels together is understandable, since Heidi Julavits and Vendela Vida are co-founders of The Believer (a literary journal I’ve written for—just once.) But there’s...

Introduce Yourself Julie Paolucci, a mom of five in Newington, Connecticut, sends a note of introduction to each of her children’s teachers. “I include relevant family information and anything specific the teacher needs to know about my child,” says Julie. Keep in Touch “I really...

Below, Warner explores Richardson's sometimes counterproductive attempts at asserting authorial control over the readers of Clarissa.

In the following essay, Wehr argues that deconstructionist interpretations of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa miss the ways the author uses irony to impose a single, moralizing narrative judgment on the story's characters and actions.

In the following excerpt, Bueler describes various plotcombining techniques used in Clarissa, including the sharing of characters and events throughout the novel's three plots, and the use of dramatic elements in letters exchanged between characters.