The Augustan Reprint Society
Samuel Richardson,
CLARISSA:
Preface, Hints of Prefaces,
and Postscript.
Introduction
BY
R. F. BRISSENDEN.
PUBLICATION NUMBER 103
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
University of California, Los Angeles
1964
| GENERAL EDITORS Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan Earl R. Miner, University of California, Los Angeles Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles Lawrence Clark Powell, Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library ADVISORY EDITORS John Butt, University of Edinburgh James L. Clifford, Columbia University Ralph Cohen, University of California, Los Angeles Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago Louis A. Landa, Princeton University Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles James Sutherland, University College, London H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Edna C. Davis, Clark Memorial Library |
INTRODUCTION
The seven volumes of the first edition of Clarissa were published inthree instalments during the twelve months from December 1747 toDecember 1748. Richardson wrote a Preface for Volume I and a Postscriptfor Volume VII, and William Warburton supplied an additional Preface forVolume III (or IV).[1] A second edition, consisting merely of a reprintof Volumes I-IV was brought out in 1749. In 1751 a third edition ofeight volumes in duodecimo and a fourth edition of seven volumes inoctavo were published simultaneously.
For the third and fourth editions the author revised the text of thenovel, rewrote his own Preface and Postscript, substantially expandingthe latter, and dropped the Preface written by Warburton. The additionsto the Postscript, like the letters and passages 'restored' to the novelitself, are distinguished in the new editions by points in the margin.
The revised Preface and Postscript, which in the following pages arereproduced from the fourth edition, constitute the most extensive andfully elaborated statement of a theory of fiction ever published byRichardson. The Preface and concluding Note to Sir Charles Grandisonare, by comparison, brief and restricted in their application; while theintroductory material in Pamela is, so far as critical theory isconcerned, slight and incoherent.
The Hints of Prefaces for Clarissa, a transcript of which is alsoincluded in this publication, is an equally important and in some waysan even more interesting document. It appears to have been put togetherby Richardson while he was revising the Preface and Postscript to thefirst edition. Certain sections of it are preliminary drafts of some ofthe new material incorporated in the revised Postscript. Large portionsof Hints of Prefaces, however, were not used then and have neverpreviously appeared in print. Among these are two crit