Samuel Richardson

See also: Richardson

Samuel Richardson , born the August 19th 1689 in the county of Derby and dead the July 4th 1761 with London, is a writer English.

Wire of a carpenter, placed like apprentice at a printer, Richardson rose, by work and the good behavior, with the consideration and fortune. He became Imprimeur of the House of Commons, Master of his corporation, printer of the king. Its last years occurred in a pleasant retirement, in the middle of a circle of devoted admirors, who surrounded it by their care.

Richardson was fifty years old when, at the request of several booksellers, it started to write a collection of letters morals; as it pushed its work, a dramatic idea united there and it resulted from it Pamela or the rewarded Virtue (London, 1740, 2 vol.). The enormous success of this work did instantaneously of Richardson one of the most known and admired writers of its time. Henry Fielding parodied Pamela twice, one with the epistolary Roman Anonym Shamela , then with Joseph Andrews , history of the brother of Pamela. Eliza Haywood also put part with its Anti-Pamela (1741) which was one of its most known novels.

This success still lasted when, eight years later, Richardson published his second and his best novel, Clarisse Harlowe ( ibid , 1748, 7 vol. in-8°). This novel was carried several times at the scene, in particular by Lessing, in Miss Sara Sampson and, to France, by Lemercier.

The third novel of Richardson, History to sir Charles Grandison ( ibid , 1753, 8 vol. in-8°), offers the ideal of a virtuous gentleman as Clarisse offered the ideal of elegant a scélérat; unfortunately the type is monotonous and, the author not knowing enough the large world for paintings which he wanted to make, the genius of the author finds himself only in the Clementine episode, a young Italian become insane because she cannot marry the protesting gentleman whom she loves.

Large in England, the success of Richardson, was even larger in France. Diderot rented it in its Éloge of Richardson in these words: “One questions me on my health, my fortune, my parents, my friends. O my friends! Pamela, Clarisse and Grandison are three great dramas! ” The three Romance epistolary of Richardson were easily transported to the scene thanks to its eminently tragic genius which makes passion its speciality.

Regarded as one of the great writers of the 18th century, Richardson influenced writers such as Jane Austen, Goethe, Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Choderlos de Laclos. Its novels were translated into French by the abbot Prévost, Letourneur, Monod, Barré.

References

Denis Diderot, Praise of Richardson , Lyon, 1762, in-12
Paul Dottin, Samuel Richardson, 1689-1761, printer of London, author of Pamela, Clarisse and Grandison , Paris, Perrin and Co, 1931
Christian Pons, Richardson and middle-class literature in England , Gap, Ophrys 1969
Rousselot Lavelle, the Influence of Samuel Richardson in France before the Revolution , Quebec, Presses university Laval, 1956
Bernard Anthony Facteau, Novels of Richardson on the French scene , Paris, university Presses of France, 1960,1927

Source

Gustave Vapereau, universal Dictionary of the literatures , Paris, Hatchet, 1876, p. 1732-3

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