Clarissa

Prompted by a recent number of the NYRB, I bought a copy of reference 1, to which I shall return in due course, and which has already spawned the string of posts closed at reference 2. Yesterday afternoon I picked up on a reference to Samuel Richardson’s ‘Clarissa’, the longest novel in the English language and one of the finest – or at least so we are told. An epistolary novel of sometimes as many as 8 volumes, as in the snap above, published in London in 1747 and 1748, so more or less in at the birth of prose fiction in England.

A novel I had never come across before, despite having spent quality time on the English Novel, so I thought I had better give it a try.

I first thought Abebooks, but while they had lots of it, they did not seem to be keen to sell the whole thing in one go, for example the perfectly decent looking Everyman edition which I think came in four volumes. And volume 1 did seem to be in short supply, which was not a very good sign.

Ebay much the same, although there was a sprinkling of fancy editions, including the one above from the end of the 18th century, a snip at £3,500. Plus a range of abridgements, some with rather gothic covers.

So I settled on a one volume Penguin Classic, a reasonably reliable imprint for books of this sort, from Amazon for just over £20 for standard delivery. It arrived this afternoon, that is to say around 24 hours later. Around 1,500 pages, an average of 3 pages to the letter, and about 3 inches thick. A modest amount of wrapping and critical apparatus; just about right for my purposes. 

If I can do 50 pages a day, I should be done in a month. But we shall see how far I actually get – and if I get all the way through, I dare say I will think that it would have been worth getting the rather more convenient Everyman edition from eBay.

PS 1: whoever compiled the Oxford Companion to English Literature did not seem to have much time (or space) for it. While the chap who did the entry in the Chambers Encyclopaedia had rather more. From where I learn that (T.B.) Macauley read it many times, to the point where he could tell you a great deal about it all, maybe even recite chunks; rather as I could once tell you a great deal about the Švejk of reference 6, another rather long book, although only a quarter the length of this one.

PS 2: lost today at Scrabble, for the fourth day running, although to be fair to myself, only once by a substantial margin. Today I lost, after very modest deductions on both sides for penalty points, by 298 to 303. So the good news is that we broke the 600 barrier for the first time for a while, probably the first time since February, noticed at reference 5.

PS 3: the following morning: today being a baking day, I have now added a further worksheet to the bread workbook, on which I shall track progress with Clarissa - 'Clary' to her intimates. As it happens, the eighth worksheet, the mission of this workbook having already crept well beyond bread.

References

Reference 1: Why Do We Care about Literary Characters? - Blakey Vermeule – 2010.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/04/descartes-baby.html.

Reference 3: Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady: Comprehending the Most Important Concerns of Private Life. And Particularly Shewing, the Distresses that May Attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, In Relation to Marriage – Samuel Richardson – 1748.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarissa. 

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-sage-of-turkey.html. 

Reference 6: The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek – 1921–1923.