Correspondence with Sarah Wescomb, Frances Grainger and Laetitia Pilkington

First scholarly edition of Samuel Richardson's correspondence with Sarah Wescomb, Frances Grainger and Laetitia Pilkington.

Samuel Richardson (Author), John A. Dussinger (Edited by)

9780521830348, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 November 2014

450 pages, 1 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 2.8 cm, 0.91 kg

Samuel Richardson (1689–1761), renowned master printer and celebrated English novelist, wrote hundreds of letters during his lifetime. The Cambridge Edition of the Correspondence of Samuel Richardson is the first complete edition of these letters. This volume contains his correspondences, many published for the first time, with three very different young women, all seeking to find their voice within family and society while corresponding with a celebrated author and moralist. Sarah Wescomb and Frances Grainger, two young, unmarried correspondents, sought paternal advice from the middle-aged author and in the process contested stances taken in his novels. Laetitia Pilkington, an accused adulteress, offers poignant glimpses into an impoverished woman's struggles to survive in Grub Street. The scholarly apparatus in this volume provides ample information about these three women's lives and their milieu, giving fascinating insights into eighteenth-century English social and literary history.

General editors' preface
Acknowledgements
Chronology
List of abbreviations
General introduction
Richardson's correspondence with Sarah Wescomb
Richardson's correspondence with Frances Grainger
Richardson's correspondence with Laetitia Pilkington
Appendix: Richardson's list of worthy women
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literature & literary studies [D]