Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript Part 1

Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript.

by Samuel Richardson.

INTRODUCTION

The seven volumes of the first edition of _Clarissa_ were published in three instalments during the twelve months from December 1747 to December 1748. Richardson wrote a Preface for Volume I and a Postscript for Volume VII, and William Warburton supplied an additional Preface for Volume III (or IV).[1] A second edition, consisting merely of a reprint of Volumes I-IV was brought out in 1749. In 1751 a third edition of eight volumes in duodecimo and a fourth edition of seven volumes in octavo were published simultaneously.

For the third and fourth editions the author revised the text of the novel, rewrote his own Preface and Postscript, substantially expanding the latter, and dropped the Preface written by Warburton. The additions to the Postscript, like the letters and pa.s.sages 'restored' to the novel itself, are distinguished in the new editions by points in the margin.

The revised Preface and Postscript, which in the following pages are reproduced from the fourth edition, const.i.tute the most extensive and fully elaborated statement of a theory of fiction ever published by Richardson. The Preface and concluding Note to _Sir Charles Grandison_ are, by comparison, brief and restricted in their application; while the introductory material in _Pamela_ is, so far as critical theory is concerned, slight and incoherent.

The _Hints of Prefaces for Clarissa_, a transcript of which is also included in this publication, is an equally important and in some ways an even more interesting doc.u.ment. It appears to have been put together by Richardson while he was revising the Preface and Postscript to the first edition. Certain sections of it are preliminary drafts of some of the new material incorporated in the revised Postscript. Large portions of _Hints of Prefaces_, however, were not used then and have never previously appeared in print. Among these are two critical a.s.sessments of the novel by Philip Skelton and Joseph Spence; and a number of observations--some merely jottings--by Richardson himself on the structure of the novel and the virtues of the epistolary style. The statements of Skelton and Spence are unusual amongst contemporary discussions of _Clarissa_ for their brevity, lucidity, and sustained critical relevance. Richardson's own comments, though disorganized and fragmentary, show that he was attempting to develop a theory of the epistolary novel as essentially dramatic, psychologically realistic, and inherently superior to 'the dry Narrative',[2] particularly as exemplified in the novels of Henry Fielding.

It is impossible to determine how much of _Hints of Prefaces_ or of the published Preface and Postscript is Richardson's own work. All were to some extent the result of collaborative effort, and Richardson did not always distinguish clearly between what he had written and what had been supplied by other people.[3] The concluding paragraph of the Postscript, for example, appears in the first edition to be the work of Richardson himself, although in the revised version he indicates that it was composed by someone else. In this instance due acknowledgment may have been easy; but in many other places it may have been extraordinarily difficult for the author/editor to disentangle his own words and ideas from those of his friends.

In preparing the Preface and Postscript Richardson was faced with a genuine problem. He realised that his achievement in _Clarissa_ was of sufficient magnitude and novelty to demand some theoretical defence and explanation. But he realised also that he was himself inadequate to the task. 'The very great Advantage of an Academical Education, I have wanted,'[4] he confessed to Mr. D. Graham of King's College. He lacked that familiarity with literature and with the conventions of literary criticism which would have made it easy for him to produce the a.n.a.lysis of his novel which he felt was needed. No wonder he told Graham that 'of all the Species of Writing, I love not Preface-Writing;'[5] and it is not surprising that, both before and after the publication of _Clarissa_, he should have besieged his friends with requests for their opinions of the novel.

In making these requests he was not simply seeking flattery. What he needed were sympathetic critics who could clothe in acceptable language statements which he would recognise as expressing the truth about his masterpiece. _Hints of Prefaces_, especially if read in the context of the numerous replies Richardson received, reveals very plainly the extent to which he was aware of what he wanted from his correspondents.

Most, unfortunately, were sadly incapable of producing a _critical_ account of the novel. In this company Skelton and Spence were brilliant exceptions; and Richardson's adoption of their statements, apparently to the exclusion of all others, indicates the soundness of his own critical intuitions. Equally interesting is his treatment of Warburton's Preface.

Although he did not reprint this in the third and fourth editions, one paragraph from it is preserved in _Hints of Prefaces_.[6] Significantly, it is the only paragraph in Warburton's essay which has something to say about the distinctive qualities of _Clarissa_.

In formulating all these critical statements Richardson is concerned less with developing a theory of fiction for its own sake than with justifying his action in writing a novel. His main defence, of course, is that _Clarissa_ is morally valuable. The reader who expects it to be a 'mere _Novel_ or _Romance_'[7] will be disappointed; and, as 'in all Works of This, and of the Dramatic Kind, STORY, or AMUs.e.m.e.nT, should be considered as little more than the _Vehicle_ to the more necessary INSTRUCTION'[8]--a dictum that Fielding was to quote with approval.[9]

The argument, though valid, is excessively laboured. In the Postscript, especially, Richardson is so preoccupied with demonstrating that _Clarissa_ is a Christian tragedy that he neglects to develop in any detail the other claims he makes for it. Yet _Hints of Prefaces_ shows that he had given considerable thought to what might be called the purely fictive qualities of his novel, and that at one stage he intended to present a much fuller account of them than he finally did. It is also clear that he realized that his didactic purposes could be achieved only if the novel succeeded first at the level of imaginative realism.

From the beginning Richardson claimed to be a realist: _Pamela_, it is announced on the t.i.tle page, is a 'Narrative which has its Foundation in TRUTH and NATURE;' and the main purpose of the Postscript to _Clarissa_ is to demonstrate that the story and the manner in which it is told are consonant both with the high artistic standards set by the Greek dramatists and with the facts of everyday life. The decision not to conclude the story with the reformation of Lovelace and his marriage to the heroine is defended on the grounds that 'the Author ... always thought, that _sudden Conversions_ ... had neither _Art_, nor _Nature_, nor even _Probability_, in them;'[10] and in the pa.s.sage in _Hints of Prefaces_[11] of which this is a condensation, he attempts to make out a case for the second part of _Pamela_ as a realistic study of married life. _Clarissa_ is stated to be superior to pagan tragedies because it dispenses with the old ideas of poetic justice and takes into account the continuance of life after death. (Richardson has his cake while eating it, however, for he points out that 'the notion of _Poetical Justice_ founded on the _modern rules_'[12] is strictly observed in _Clarissa_).

The claim that _Clarissa_ presents a generally truthful rendering of life is given its clearest expression by Skelton and Spence. Both emphasize that it is different from conventional romances and novels: 'it is another kind of Work, or rather a new Species of Novel,'[13] we have 'a Work of a new kind among us'.[14] _Clarissa_ is concerned with 'the Workings of private and domestic Pa.s.sions', says Skelton, and '[not] those of Kings, Heroes, Heroines ... it comes home to the Heart, and to common Life, in every Line.'[15] The author, says Spence, has not followed the example of the writers of romances, but 'has attempted to give a plain and natural Account of an Affair that happened in a private Family, just in the manner that it did happen.'[16]

Richardson's decision not to include these two essays in the Postscript was perhaps influenced by the fact that he was able to use a similar testimonial which had the added virtue of being patently unsolicited.

This is the 'Critique on the History of CLARISSA, written in French, and published at Amsterdam',[17] an English translation of which had been printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of June and August, 1749.

Published anonymously, but written by Albrecht von Haller,[18] this review must have been particularly attractive also to Richardson because of the singular praise it accords his Epistolary method'. It had already been a.s.serted by de Freval, in the first of the introductory letters to _Pamela_, that with this way of writing 'the several Pa.s.sions of the Mind must ... be more affectingly described, and Nature may be traced in her undisguised Inclinations with much more Propriety and Exactness, than can possibly be found in a Detail of Actions long past;'[19] and von Haller carries the charge even further by claiming not only that it allows the author a greater degree of psychological veracity but also that the convention itself is inherently more realistic than ordinary narrative: 'Romances in general ... are wholly improbable; because they suppose the History to be written after the series of events is closed by the catastrophe: A circ.u.mstance which implies a strength of memory beyond all example and probability in the persons concerned.'[20]

Richardson also believed that the epistolary method was superior to the narrative because it was essentially dramatic. Aaron Hill, in one of the introductory letters to _Pamela_, had maintained that 'one of the best-judg'd Peculiars of the Plan' was that the moral instruction was conveyed 'as in a kind of Dramatical Representation';[21] while in the Postscript to _Clarissa_ Richardson describes it as a 'History (or rather Dramatic Narrative)'.[22] The parallels which he draws between _Clarissa_ and Greek tragedy are directed mainly to illuminating the tragic rather than the specifically dramatic qualities of the novel. But it is clear that he regarded his work as being closer in every way to the drama than to the epic.

The basic distinction between drama and epic (or any other form of narrative) had been drawn by Aristotle:

The poet, imitating the same object ... may do it either in narration--and that, again, either by personating other characters, as Homer does, or in his own person throughout ... --or he may imitate by representing all his characters as real, and employed in the action itself.[23]

Le Bossu, in his _Treatise of the Epick Poem_, gives his own restatement of this, and amplifies it by pointing to the particular virtues of the drama: by presenting characters directly to the spectators drama 'has no parts exempt from the Action,' and is thus 'entire and perfect'.

Fielding was familiar with the _Treatise_, and it is possible that Richardson had also looked at Le Bossu to prepare himself for dealing with the epic theory of his rival.[24]

There were also precedents for placing the novel in the dramatic rather than the epic tradition. Congreve, when he wrote _Incognita_ (1692), took the drama as his model. 'Since all Traditions must indisputably give place to the _Drama_,' he wrote in the Preface, 'and since there is no possibility of giving that life to the Writing or Repet.i.tion of a Story which it has in the Action, I resolved ... to imitate _Dramatick_ Writing ... in the Design, Contexture, and Result of the Plot. I have not observed it before in a Novel.'[25] The a.n.a.logy with drama had also been drawn by Henry Gally in his _Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings_ (1725), who, after maintaining that 'the essential Parts of the Characters, in the _Drama_, and in _Characteristic-Writings_ are the same,' goes on to praise the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_ for the 'excellent Specimens in the Characteristic-Way' that they offered their readers.[26] Such acknowledgments of the dramatic potentialities in prose fiction were, however, unusual. The romances were modelled on the epic (Fielding, in fact, describes _Joseph Andrews_ in his Preface as a 'comic Romance'); and the picaresque mode in which Smollett wrote had no obviously dramatic qualities. Richardson's advocacy of the novel in which action is presented rather than retailed seems, indeed, curiously modern: it is something Henry James would certainly have understood and approved.

In formulating his own theory of fiction Richardson had Fielding very much in mind. It would be surprising if he had not: the rivalry between the two novelists was open and recognised, although by the time _Clarissa_ was published it had a.s.sumed the appearance of friendliness.

Sarah Fielding's a.s.sociation with Richardson probably had something to do with this; but the reconciliation was largely her brother's own work.

His just and generous praise of _Clarissa_--publicly in the _Jacobite's Journal_ and privately in a letter to the author--[27] makes full and honourable amends for his mockery of Richardson in _Shamela_ and _Joseph Andrews_. If he had not published _Tom Jones_ all might have been well.

But Richardson could not forgive his old enemy for achieving a triumph in his chosen field so soon after the publication of his own masterpiece. He abused Fielding covertly in letters to his friends; and his revisions of the Preface and Postscript were designed in part to counter the claims for the comic prose epic advanced in _Tom Jones_ and elsewhere. _Hints of Prefaces_ reveals this more clearly than the published versions of the Preface and Postscript: Richardson unfortunately lacked the courage and confidence to press home the attack.

_Hints of Prefaces_ bears no date, but there is evidence that it was a.s.sembled after the first edition of _Clarissa_ had appeared and, in part at least, after the publication of _Tom Jones_. Richardson refers directly at one point to 'this Second Publication',[28] and several sections in it are printed (either in full or in a condensed form) only in the revised Postscript. _Hints of Prefaces_ therefore cannot be a discarded draft of the Preface and Postscript to the first edition. The final volumes of this first edition came out in December 1748, and _Tom Jones_ was published in the following February. A letter from Skelton, dated June 10th, 1749,[29] which mentions an 'inclosed Paper' on _Clarissa_, indicates that his essay did not reach Richardson until after this date; and in the letter to Graham, from which I have already quoted, we find him in the May of 1750 still seeking a.s.sistance in the preparation of his Preface.

Apart from such evidence it is obvious that one section of _Hints of Prefaces_ is directed specifically at Fielding. In pages [12] and [13]

of the ma.n.u.script Richardson seems to be answering, consciously and in sequence, arguments brought forward in the Preface to _Joseph Andrews_; the Prefaces contributed by Fielding to the second edition of _The Adventures of David Simple_ (1744), by his sister, Sarah, and its sequel, _Familiar Letters between the Princ.i.p.al Characters in David Simple_ (1747); and, of course, the introductory chapters in _Tom Jones_. Richardson begins this part of _Hints of Prefaces_ with a discussion of the three kinds of romance: those that offer us '_Ridicule_; or _Serious Adventure_; or, lastly, a _Mixture of both_'.

He admits 'that there are some Works under the First of these Heads, which have their Excellencies,' but doubts 'whether _Ridicule_ is a proper basis ... whereon to build instruction.'[30] The reference here seems clearly to be to the Preface to _Joseph Andrews_ where Fielding presents his theory of the comic romance and the ridiculous. Richardson then proceeds to defend his epistolary method--a convention which Fielding had singled out for attack in his Preface to _Familiar Letters_, remarking that 'no one will contend, that the epistolary Style is in general the most proper to a Novelist, or that it hath been used by the best Writers of this Kind.'[31] Even if Richardson had not been a subscriber to Miss Fielding's small volume, he could scarcely have overlooked a challenge so unequivocal as this. In _Clarissa_ he knew that the challenge had been answered triumphantly: among other things it is a complete vindication of the epistolary technique:

We need not insist on the evident Superiority of this Method to the dry Narrative; where the _Novelist_ moves on, his own dull Pace, to the End of his Chapter and Book, interweaving impertinent Digressions, for fear the Reader's Patience should be exhausted...[32]

_Tom Jones_, with its books, chapters, critical interpolations, and ironical apologies to the reader, is the target here; and Richardson clearly longed to inflict a defeat on its author in the realm of theory as resounding as the one he believed he had achieved over him in practice. His nerve failed him, however, and his defence of the epistolary method as it finally appears in the revised Postscript is cursory and deceptively restrained: 'The author ... perhaps mistrusted his talents for the narrative kind of writing. He had the good fortune to succeed in the Epistolary way once before.'[33]

After completing _Clarissa_ Richardson had a clear and conscious apprehension of the scope and unique qualities of his achievement. His ability to give an account of these things, however, was limited, though not so limited as he feared: for his theory of the novel to be fully understood, the final versions of his Preface and Postscript need to be read in conjunction with the hitherto unpublished _Hints of Prefaces for Clarissa_.

R. F. Brissenden Australian National University Canberra.

FOOTNOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

[1] See _Samuel Richardson: a bibliographical Record of his literary Career_, by William Merritt Sale (New Haven, 1936), pp. 49-50.

[2] _Hints of Prefaces for Clarissa_, p. [13], 13.

[3] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 370.

[4] Forster MSS., XV, f 84, May 3, 1750.

[5] Ibid., f 85.

[6] [6], ... Warburton's Preface is reproduced in _Prefaces to Fiction_, With an Introduction by Benjamin Boyce, Augustan Reprint Society Publication Number 32 (Los Angeles, 1952).

[7] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 367.

[8] Preface (first edition) Vol. I, vi.

[9] '_Pleasantry_, (as the ingenious Author of Clarissa says of a Story) _should be made only the Vehicle of Instruction_. _The Covent-Garden Journal_, Number 10, 4th February, 1752. 'If entertainment, as Mr.

Richardson observes, be but a secondary consideration in a romance ...

it may well be so considered in a work founded, like this, on truth.'

_Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_ (London, 1755), The Preface, pp.

xvi-xvii.

[10] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 349.

[11] _Hints of Prefaces_, p. [2], 2.

[12] Postscript (fourth edition), p. 359.

[13] _Hints of Prefaces_, p. [8], 7.