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Since so many pages of text were added to Clarissa in the third edition, it has generally been assumed that the third, or a conflation of the third and fourth editions, represents most fully Samuel Richardson's final intentions. Editors have accepted this assumption, and for very good reasons. The novel published for the third time in 1751 is not only a whole volume longer than the one that readers first encountered in 1747-48. It also differs in tone and appearance from the second version, dated 1749. The author's claim, of course, that the third edition restored many of the letters and passages he had deleted from his original manuscript contributed to the preeminence of that edition from 1751 to our own time. And one only has to scan the separate volume, Letters and Passages Restored from the Original Manuscripts of the History of Clarissa, which Richardson published simultaneously with the third edition, "for the Sake of doing Justice to the Purchasers of the Two First Editions of that Work,"[1] to discover how attentively he retouched his finest novel.
In an earlier article[2] I explored the range and variety of Richardson's revisions in the second edition, in search of firmer and more precise ground than has been available in discussions of the problem thus far. Having also collated the third and fourth editions with the first two (Volumes V-VIII of the third edition were collated directly with Volumes V-VII of the first, since the second edition consists of only the first four volumes), I now want to present my discoveries,
The first significant challenge to the privileged status of the third edition was mounted only in recent years by Kinkead-Weekes, in a suggestive article entitled "Clarissa Restored?"[3] His argument turns, not on the question of whether the third edition is negligently printed or carelessly revised, but on whether the passages and letters added to the novel in 1751 were in fact true "restorations," as Richardson claimed, or whether they were newly written to counteract some serious misreadings that Richardson observed in his contemporary audience. Kinkead-Weekes argues that Richardson's efforts to blacken the character of Lovelace, and to engage in more explicit moralizing, make the third edition "cruder and clumsier" than the first.
Moreover, he claims, this may be "the earliest example of the effect upon a novel of audience reactions in the course of publication."[4] For these reasons then, he believes, there is a strong case for printing the first edition. His conclusion was in fact acted on in April, 1971, when the Rinehart Press published an abridged version of the first edition, edited by Philip Stevick. In his Introduction, Mr. Stevick acknowledges his debt to Kinkead-Weekes and he concludes, as his predecessor did, that "the third edition is, although more carefully written, more coarse and heavy-handed in its enlistment of our sympathies."[5]
I am not primarily interested in this present article in either affirming or refuting the thesis advanced by Kinkead-Weekes or Stevick. There are many other problems germane to the full sweep of Richardson's changes, embracing several kinds of data, which must first be examined. In brief, Volumes I-IV, to which the second edition is limited, were patiently reworked, not only by several large addenda, but also by the systematic alteration of thousands of minute and subtle points as well, covering many aspects of the novel from the very minor to the very significant, ranging in quality from indifferent to excellent, and reflecting in myriad ways both Richardson's unique gifts and his peculiar weaknesses as a craftsman. When taken as a part of the total effort he made at that time, the changes we can pinpoint with any certainty as arising from the objections of a hostile, critical audience are an extremely small proportion of the author's complete endeavor. It may still be that the first edition should be printed, but perhaps not for the reasons that have been alleged.
As I did in my discussion of the second edition, I will again present a varied sampling of Richardson's changes, emphasizing those which most fundamentally affect certain features of Clarissa, such as character, narrative method, style, etc., those which continue patterns begun in the second edition (or even when the novel was in manuscript form), those which have been the subject of critical dispute, and those which most effectively illustrate Richardson's artistic goals and intentions. With all the relevant evidence in hand, one can then try to offer solutions to a cluster of interesting problems.
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