Clarissa Harlowe; or the History of a Young Lady — Volume 6
1747
Clarissa Harlowe; or the History of a Young Lady — Volume 6
1747
Volume 6 of Richardson's masterwork finds Lovelace at his most unsettling: not scheming, but grappling with the wreckage of his own desires. Through letters to his confidant Belford, we enter the mind of a man who has destroyed something pure and cannot decide whether he regrets it or admires his own power. Clarissa Harlowe remains resolute in her rejection, yet she is already ruined, and Richardson refuses to look away from the psychological devastation of both victim and villain. This volume strips away the melodrama of seduction to reveal something more disturbing: a rake examining his own conscience and finding it both troubled and proud. The novel's genius lies in its refusal to give us a simple monster. Lovelace is intelligent, articulate, and genuinely tortured, which makes him far more frightening than any straightforward villain. Clarissa's virtue becomes both her glory and her prison, and this volume traces the precise moment when her suffering begins to transcend the physical and enter the realm of the spiritual. This is psychological fiction before the term existed, an 800,000-word excavation of what it means to corrupt, to resist, and to survive.
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“For love must be a very foolish thing to look back upon, when it has brought persons born to affluence into indigence, and laid a generous mind under obligation and dependence.””
— Samuel Richardson
“to be courted as princesses for a few weeks, in order to be treated as slaves for the rest of our lives.””
— Samuel Richardson
“I was exceedingly affected, says he, upon the occasion. But was ashamed to be surprised by her into such a fit of unmanly weakness-so ashamed that I was resolved to subdue it at the instant, and guard against the like for the future. Yet, at that moment, I more than half regretted that I could not permit her to enjoy a triumph which she so well deserved to glory in-her youth, her beauty, her artless innocence, and her manner, equally beyond comparison or description. But her indifference, Belford!-That she could resolve to sacrifice me to the malice of my enemies; and carry on the design in so clandestine a manner-yet love her, as I do, to frenzy!-revere her, as I do, to adoration!-These were the recollections with which I fortified my recreant heart against her-Yet, after all, if she persevere, she must conquer!-Coward, as she has made me, that never was a coward before!””
— Samuel Richardson
“I had rather all the world should be angry with me than my mamma!””
— Samuel Richardson
“Affected by my mother's goodness to me, and by that part of her argument which related to her own peace, and to the suspicions they had of her secretly inclining to prefer the man so hated by them,””
— Samuel Richardson
“She paused, with a look of expectation, as if she waited for my consenting answer. I was still silent; looking down; the tears in my eyes.””
— Samuel Richardson
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Richardson, Samuel. Clarissa Harlowe; or the History of a Young Lady — Volume 6. Lex, lex-books.com/book/clarissa-harlowe-or-the-history-of-a-young-lady-volume-6-6572260d-f19b-4315-a928-3c1de2c6ecfa.Richardson, S. (1747). Clarissa Harlowe; or the History of a Young Lady — Volume 6. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/clarissa-harlowe-or-the-history-of-a-young-lady-volume-6-6572260d-f19b-4315-a928-3c1de2c6ecfaRichardson, Samuel. Clarissa Harlowe; or the History of a Young Lady — Volume 6. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/clarissa-harlowe-or-the-history-of-a-young-lady-volume-6-6572260d-f19b-4315-a928-3c1de2c6ecfa.
