Description

Book Synopsis
Oh thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guilty hour, for a whole age of repentance!

Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of marriage are accompanied by unwelcome and increasingly brutal sexual advances. And yet, Clarissa finds his charm alluring, her scrupulous sense of virtue tinged with unconfessed desire. Told through a complex series of interweaving letters, Clarissa is a richly ambiguous study of a fatally attracted couple and a work of astonishing power and immediacy. A huge success when it first appeared in 1747, and translated into French and German, it remains one of the greatest of all European novels.

In his introduction, Angus Ross examines characterization, the epist

Trade Review
“Harrowing, unforgiving and extreme . . . A graphic study of the pathologies endemic to a culture that treats women as property. It’s also a passionate celebration of female friendship and of the written word—storytelling as means of power and transcendence.” —Jennifer Egan, Lit Hub

Clarissa

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    A Paperback / softback by Samuel Richardson, Angus Ross

    £21.25

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      Book details

      Publisher Penguin Random House Group
      Imprint Penguin Classics
      Published 29 August 1985
      ISBN-13 9780140432152
      978-0140432152
      ISBN-10 0140432159
      Also in:
      ELT & Literary Studies Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Oh thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guilty hour, for a whole age of repentance!

      Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of marriage are accompanied by unwelcome and increasingly brutal sexual advances. And yet, Clarissa finds his charm alluring, her scrupulous sense of virtue tinged with unconfessed desire. Told through a complex series of interweaving letters, Clarissa is a richly ambiguous study of a fatally attracted couple and a work of astonishing power and immediacy. A huge success when it first appeared in 1747, and translated into French and German, it remains one of the greatest of all European novels.

      In his introduction, Angus Ross examines characterization, the epist

      Trade Review
      “Harrowing, unforgiving and extreme . . . A graphic study of the pathologies endemic to a culture that treats women as property. It’s also a passionate celebration of female friendship and of the written word—storytelling as means of power and transcendence.” —Jennifer Egan, Lit Hub

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