Clarissa: Or, the History of a Young Lady
Author(s): Samuel Richardson
This classic novel tells the story, in letters, of the beautiful and virtuous Clarissa Harlowe's pursuit by the brilliant, unscrupulous rake Robert Lovelace. The epistolary structure allows Richardson to create layered and fully realized characters, as well as an intriguing uncertainty about the reliability of the various "narrators." Clarissa emerges as a heroine at once rational and passionate, self-sacrificing and defiant, and her story has gripped readers since the novel's first publication in 1747-1748. This new abridgment is designed to retain the novel's rich characterizations and relationships, and reproduces individual letters in their entirety whenever possible. This Broadview Edition provides a uniquely accessible entry point for readers, while retaining much of the powerful reading experience of the complete novel.
General Information
- :
- : Broadview Press Ltd
- : Broadview Press Ltd
- : 0.937
- : 14 January 2011
- : Canada
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Samuel Richardson
- : Paperback
- : Abridged edition
- : 823.6
- : 800
More About The Product
"Clarissa is one of the towering masterpieces of the eighteenth century, and it is impossible to understand the literature of the period and the rise of the novel without it. This new edition provides a rigorously conceived, expertly executed solution to the problem of abridgment, and restores to the undergraduate classroom a work previously excluded by sheer length." - Thomas Keymer, University of Toronto "Eager to introduce rather than replace a masterpiece, Richetti and Bowers offer a practical classroom compromise to the familiar problem of Richardson's prolixity. Surely an abridgment of this magnitude-with its smart choice of the 1751 third edition as copy text, its accessible introduction and notes, and an appendix that resurrects important historical contexts-will tempt new generations of readers to consider, eventually, all of Clarissa." - Janine Barchas, University of Texas at Austin
Toni Bowers is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. John Richetti is A.M. Rosenthal Professor (Emeritus) of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Both have published widely on eighteenth-century fiction.
