Knowra Samuel Richardson Samuel Richardson Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) was an English novelist and printer whose epistolary novels, especially Pamela and Clarissa , helped shape the English novel.
Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded : A 1740 epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson about a servant resisting her employer’s sexual advances. Its success established Richardson as a novelist and made virtue under pressure a public controversy.
Epistolary novel : A novel told through documents such as letters, diaries, or records exchanged among characters. Richardson’s major novels made this narrative form central to English prose fiction.
London printing trade : The network of printers, publishers, booksellers, and workers producing and selling books in London. Richardson’s lifelong work in this trade gave him practical knowledge of books and their audiences.
Henry Fielding : An English novelist, playwright, and magistrate whose comic fiction included Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones . Fielding’s parodies and narrative methods offered a sharp counterpoint to Richardson’s moral realism.
Rise of the novel : The historical growth of prose fiction as a prominent literary form, especially in eighteenth-century Britain and Europe. Richardson’s long, popular novels became central examples in accounts of the English novel’s emergence.
Clarissa : A 1748 epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson about Clarissa Harlowe’s conflict with her family and the rake Lovelace. Richardson expanded the letter form into a tragedy of coercion, family power, and moral responsibility.
Point of view (literature) : The position from which a narrative presents events, information, and experience. Each letter restricts events to a character’s partial and personal account.
Conduct book : A book offering practical guidance on behavior, manners, or moral conduct. Pamela grew from Richardson’s work on letters intended to advise readers on conduct.
Sarah Fielding : An English novelist and translator, and the sister of Henry Fielding. Her The History of the Countess of Dellwyn and The History of Ophelia engaged with the novelistic culture Richardson helped shape.
Domestic fiction : Fiction centered on household life, family relationships, and private experience. Richardson made domestic conflict a source of sustained narrative and moral drama.
Show all 25