Samuel Richardson

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Standard Name: Richardson, Samuel
SR 's three epistolary novels, published between 1740 and 1753, exerted an influence on women's writing which was probably stronger than that of any other novelist, male or female, of the century. He also facilitated women's literary careers in his capacity as member of the publishing trade, and published a letter-writing manual and a advice-book for printers' apprentices.
Stipple engraving of Samuel Richardson, used by Anna Letitia Barbauld in her edition of Richardson's correspondence. He is standing with his right hand tucked into his jacket and a book in his left hand; in the related painting by Joseph Highmore, Richardson holds a paper instead of a book.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Features Sue Townsend
Townsend expresses sympathy over what she assumes to have been the pain and humiliation caused to Sheridan and other women writers by compulsory anonymity.
Townsend, Sue, and Frances Sheridan. “Introduction”. Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph, Pandora Press, 1987, p. ix - xi.
ix
Being no scholar, she did not know how commonly authors...
Textual Production Catharine Trotter
Critic Robert Adams Day ably summarised the virtues of this tale in 1969, well ahead of the explosion of interest in early women's writing. He pointed out the novelty of the middle-class heroine, chaste but...
Textual Features Lady Mary Walker
The title character, Eliza de Crui, sets the tone for discussion by writing from Brussels to Mrs Pierpont at Liège with the remark that, since it is so hard to say anything new, she will...
Intertextuality and Influence Eglinton Wallace
Hers is, however, a conservative approach to improving the status of women. She sees female chastity as central not only to women's well-being but also to society, for reasons of property and inheritance and to...
Textual Production Helena Wells
She published this with Longman , signing her preface Helena Wells Whitford, though the title-page says only by the Author of the Step-Mother. Subscribers included Joanna Baillie and Anne Hunter . The title-page...
Literary responses Jane West
When the fourth volume appeared in 1789, the Critical found it heavy, languid and uninteresting, and judged the serial publication to have been a mistake.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
68 (1789): 495
Andrew Becket in the Monthly and Mary Wollstonecraft
Textual Production Anna Williams
Johnson wrote to Samuel Richardson to enlist his support for AW in her plan to compile a dictionary of philosophical, that is scientific, terms.
Johnson, Samuel. The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Editor Redford, Bruce, The Hyde Edition, Princeton University Press, 1992–1994, 5 vols.
1: 79-80
Publishing Anna Williams
AW 's Verses to Mr. Richardson , on his Publication of Sir Charles Grandison appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine.
Larsen, Lyle. Dr. Johnson’s Household. Archon Books, 1985.
28-9
Publishing Anna Williams
She wanted to have Richardson 's opinion, as a leading London printer, as to whether a scientific dictionary might be profitable in this age of dictionaries. She had been meditat[ing] her scheme for a long...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anna Williams
Williams voices admiration for each of Richardson 's three novels, and ingeniously defends him against a recurrent criticism: Proceed to teach, thy labours ne'er can tire, / Thou still must write, and we must still...
Textual Features Harriette Wilson
Much in this revised and expanded edition is merely scrappy (and some is written by Stockdale), with nuggets strung together by such giveaway phrases as By the bye and To change the subject.
qtd. in
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber, 2003.
249
But...
Education Elizabeth Pipe Wolferstan
EPW says nothing specific about her intellectual development, except that Richardson 's Sir Charles Grandison had formed her mind and heart. Her education was clearly a good one that included much reading.
Textual Production Mary Wollstonecraft
During the same year, 1790, Johnson published Young Grandison. A Series of Letters from Young Persons to Their Friends, MW 's free rendering of a Richardson -inspired juvenile conduct book by the Dutchwoman Maria Geertruida van de Werken de Cambon
Friends, Associates Mehetabel Wright
Either now or later she met the writer John Duncombe and painter Joseph Highmore , as well as the novelist Samuel Richardson .
Knights, Elspeth. “A Licensuous Daughter: Mehetabel Wesley, 1697-1750”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
4
, No. 1, 1997, pp. 15-38.
17, 27
Textual Production Mehetabel Wright
Many of her poems, sent to relations, seem to have been lost in transit. Only a handful have been identified, though there may be more to come. Some which do survive are to be found...

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