Samuel Richardson and Dorothy Bradshaigh began an exchange of
letters in 1748 when she, feeling "for the virtuous in distress" and
apprehending "a fatal catastrophe," wrote him to plead that Clarissa not be
subjected to "rapes, ruin, and destruction." If Richardson disappointed her,
she cursed him to "meet with applause only from envious old maids, surly
bachelors, and tyrannical parents." She also informed him that she was no
"giddy girl of sixteen" and that if he took her for a "fool" for having
written him, she did not "care a straw."[1] Though Richardson did not heed
her curse
and went on to have his heroine raped, ruined, and destroyed, there
developed between him and Lady Bradshaigh the warmest of friendships
and a correspondence
that continued until his death in 1761. Their early correspondence was
devoted to
Clarissa and much of their later correspondence
to
the composition of
Sir Charles Grandison, a work Lady
Bradshaigh had urged upon him.
Of Richardson's many correspondents Lady Bradshaigh was the "most
beloved and revered,"[2] and,
consequently, his letters to her present a highly revealing portrait of himself
and his art. And her argumentative but always warm letters, in reflecting
the sensibilities of the age, are an important social document, for they are
among the earliest examples of a public reaction against the avant-garde
artist, a reaction common now in the twentieth century. Though Richardson
is often stereotyped as a rather conventional sentimentalist, he developed a
new genre, revealed his characters, in anticipation of the modern novel,
through their psychology, and shaped plots, certainly in
Clarissa, that were daring for his time.
Though many of Richardson's and Lady Bradshaigh's letters are
preserved in Mrs. Barbauld's six volume Correspondence and
in the Forster Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, they represent
perhaps only one-third of those Richardson and Lady Bradshaigh
exchanged. In her Life of Samuel Richardson which prefaces
the Correspondence, Mrs. Barbauld writes that Lady
Bradshaigh's letters "together with Richardson's answers, would alone make
several volumes, I believe as many as the whole of this publication" (I,
ccviii). In addition to the fact that most of the letters have been lost to
them, scholars are further hampered by the confused state in which the
preserved letters exist. Richardson and Lady Bradshaigh both tampered with
them, as did Mrs. Barbauld, whose edition contains numerous misdated,
composite, and cut letters.[3] Among
the most important and the most confused of Richardson's and Lady
Bradshaigh's letters are
those of 1751. Eaves and Kimpel write that "some of the letters to Lady
Bradshaigh, especially during the time of the composition of
Grandison, seem to be much more confused than the others,"
and that those of 1751 are in "utter confusion" (pp. 439 & 657). This
confusion actually begins with Lady Bradshaigh's letter of 25 November
1750 and continues through hers of 3 January 1752.
I have attempted to straighten out that confusion by separating the
composite letters, rejoining them to their originals where they exist,
arranging the letters in chronological order, and dating them as precisely as
I could on the basis of internal evidence. Though I occasionally disagree
with the calendar of correspondence published as the Appendix to Eaves'
and Kimpel's monumental study of Richardson's life and work, without it
I would have found the prospect of establishing the chronology of the 1751
letters absolutely hopeless.
The following chart compares Mrs. Barbauld's, Professors Eaves' and
Kimpel's, and my arrangement of the letters. It is followed by an
explanation of how I arrived at the chronology and established the dates in
my arrangement.
BARBAULD
- 25 Nov. 1750 B to R (VI, 40-48)
- Undated B to R (VI, 49-57)[1]
- Undated R to B (VI, 57-62)
- Undated R to B (VI, 62-68)
- 9 Feb. 1750 B to R (VI, 69-77)
- Undated R to B (VI, 77-84)
- 24 March R to B (VI, 85-89)
- 29 March 1751 B to R (VI, 90-101)
- Undated B to R (VI, 101-109)
- 16 April 1751 B to R (VI, 110-116)
- Undated R to B (VI, 116-123)
- Undated B to R (VI, 123-127)
- 26 Dec. 1751 R to B (VI, 128-137)
- 3 Jan. 1752 B to R (VI, 137-146)
EAVES & KIMPEL
- 25 Nov. 1750 B to R (B, VI, 40-48); FM, XI, ff. 19-20)[2]
- [28 Dec.] B to R (B, VI, 49-57)
- [Dec.-Jan.] R to B (B, VI, 121-123)
- [Jan.] R to B (B, VI, 57-62)
- 9 Feb. B to R (B, VI, 69-75)
- [Feb.-March] R to B (B, VI, 78-84)[3]
- 5 March B to R (FM, XI, f. 21)
- [Mid-Mar.??] R to B (B, VI, 62-68)
- 17 March B to R (B, VI, 75-77)
- 24 March R to B (B, VI, 85-89)
- [Apr.-Oct.] B to R (B, VI, 96-101)
- [Apr.-Oct.?] R to B (B, VI, 116-121)
- 8 April B to R (B, VI, 90-101; FM, XI, ff. 22-23)
- 16 April B to R (B, VI, 110-116)
- [May-Nov.] B to R (B, VI, 101-109)
- [May-Nov.] B to R (B, VI, 123-127)
- 26 Dec. R to B (B, VI, 128-137)
- 3 Jan. B to R (B, VI, 137-146)
WOOD
- 25 Nov. 1750 B to R (B, VI, 40-42, 45-48; FM, XI, ff.
19-20)
- Dec. R to B (B, VI, 121-123)
- 6 Jan. B to R (B, VI, 49-57)
- Jan. R to B (B, VI, 57-62)
- 9 Feb. B to R (B, VI, 69-75)
- Feb. R to B (B, VI, 77-84)
- Late Feb. B to R (B, VI, 42-45)
- 5 March B to R (FM, XI, f. 21)
- 14 March R to B (B, VI, 62-68, omit first paragraph p.
64)
- 17 March B to R (B, VI, 75-77)
- 24 March R to B (B, VI, 85-89)
- 29 March B to R (B, VI, 90-96)
- 8 April B to R (B, VI, 96-101; FM, XI, ff. 22-23)
- 16 April B to R (B, VI, 106-109, 110-116)
- May R to B (B, VI, 116-121)
- May-June B to R (B, VI, 123-127)
- Late May-Jn B to R (B, VI, 101-105, 109)
- 26 Dec. R to B (B, VI, 128-137)
- 3 Jan. 1752 B to R (B, VI, 105-106, 137-146)
