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sarahrita's review against another edition
3.0
This one started off slowly for me but ended really well. I definitely want to read the full version as it did feel a lot was missing from this one which made things a bit stagnant at times. Looking forward to the full version next year!
firerosearien's review against another edition
4.0
Getting through 1500 pages of this is an accomplishment for sure.
There is a very intricate plot here; it takes a while to get going but the characterizations are fantastic. Lovelace might be one of the most villain-y villains I've seen in a while...
I wouldn't recommend reading this if you aren't familiar with Georgian society (England of the 1700s) as there a number of social conventions whose importance might otherwise be misunderstood. However, for those with a fondness for the time period, it may be worth it.
That said, if you're going to read a long 18th century novel, I'd start with Tom Jones.
There is a very intricate plot here; it takes a while to get going but the characterizations are fantastic. Lovelace might be one of the most villain-y villains I've seen in a while...
I wouldn't recommend reading this if you aren't familiar with Georgian society (England of the 1700s) as there a number of social conventions whose importance might otherwise be misunderstood. However, for those with a fondness for the time period, it may be worth it.
That said, if you're going to read a long 18th century novel, I'd start with Tom Jones.
zarasecker23's review against another edition
2.0
First and foremost this book was an exercise in endurance. It almost reminded me of a long running soap opera that one could not watch for many months or years, come back to it, and not feel like you missed you anything! Due to being determined to finish this book I persevered.
Initially it started off OK, giving an insight into how it was expected for women to marry certain people, according to her father’s wishes, no questions asked. It was very clear early on in this book that her brother, sister and father, had arranged, and expected Clarissa, to marry a wealthy man that she detested. Clarissa, being the surprisingly feisty woman (at least to her family) that she was, dug her heels in and refused to conform with their wishes. The family then went into damage control because they’d never come across this behaviour in Clarissa before so it took them off guard.
In the beginning, I was very supportive of Clarissa and hoping that she would get her wish and not be made to marry a man she didn’t love. I felt sorry for her in that her whole family was against her and making her life a living hell, including locking her in her room.
Clarissa was portrayed as being in love with another man, Mr Lovelace, or at least that was how it came across. She organised to secretly run away with him but when it came to do so, she changed her mind (something it became abundantly clear she was prone to do), in part because she wasn’t dressed in the correct clothes for travelling. It was from this point that I started to find Clarissa annoying and Mr Lovelace as patient, understanding, and generally kind.
It became very clear, the further in to the book I got, Clarissa’s fickleness showed up time and time again particularly where her emotions and reasoning were concerned. I forgave this in the early stages of the book and shook it off as understandable given her treatment by her family. However, the further into the book I got the more her behaviour irritated me. I wanted to go and ‘shake’ her and tell her to grow up and make up her mind what she wanted to do and stick to her decision. She was manipulative and kept going back on her decisions as often as the weather changes. So the bulk of this book detailed her indecisiveness with pretty much everything. She also seemed to spend a lot of time apologising, to various people, and trying to make amends for actual or perceived offences that she had perpetrated. She came across as very vain and superficial.
Overall I really think this 1500+ page tome could easily have been reduced to 500 pages without drastically affecting the story. In fact it may have actually added a whole new level of strength to the story, which was made up entirely of letters between Clarissa and everybody else. If you want to tackle this book be prepared to put in the hard yakka because it’s a huge marathon effort not a sprint!
Initially it started off OK, giving an insight into how it was expected for women to marry certain people, according to her father’s wishes, no questions asked. It was very clear early on in this book that her brother, sister and father, had arranged, and expected Clarissa, to marry a wealthy man that she detested. Clarissa, being the surprisingly feisty woman (at least to her family) that she was, dug her heels in and refused to conform with their wishes. The family then went into damage control because they’d never come across this behaviour in Clarissa before so it took them off guard.
In the beginning, I was very supportive of Clarissa and hoping that she would get her wish and not be made to marry a man she didn’t love. I felt sorry for her in that her whole family was against her and making her life a living hell, including locking her in her room.
Clarissa was portrayed as being in love with another man, Mr Lovelace, or at least that was how it came across. She organised to secretly run away with him but when it came to do so, she changed her mind (something it became abundantly clear she was prone to do), in part because she wasn’t dressed in the correct clothes for travelling. It was from this point that I started to find Clarissa annoying and Mr Lovelace as patient, understanding, and generally kind.
It became very clear, the further in to the book I got, Clarissa’s fickleness showed up time and time again particularly where her emotions and reasoning were concerned. I forgave this in the early stages of the book and shook it off as understandable given her treatment by her family. However, the further into the book I got the more her behaviour irritated me. I wanted to go and ‘shake’ her and tell her to grow up and make up her mind what she wanted to do and stick to her decision. She was manipulative and kept going back on her decisions as often as the weather changes. So the bulk of this book detailed her indecisiveness with pretty much everything. She also seemed to spend a lot of time apologising, to various people, and trying to make amends for actual or perceived offences that she had perpetrated. She came across as very vain and superficial.
Overall I really think this 1500+ page tome could easily have been reduced to 500 pages without drastically affecting the story. In fact it may have actually added a whole new level of strength to the story, which was made up entirely of letters between Clarissa and everybody else. If you want to tackle this book be prepared to put in the hard yakka because it’s a huge marathon effort not a sprint!
tildafin16's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
sherri22's review against another edition
5.0
My goodness! Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady is a masterpiece. It did take me a very long time, but even with all the time I wasn’t reading this, Clarissa was always in the back of my mind. I had to catch up on some literature to better understand the references Samuel Richardson compared this tragedy to, like The Romance of Tristan and Iseult.
Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady is known as one of the longest English novel, with 1534 pages. Samuel Richardson has done a massive feat, for this large tome is written in only letters. The series of letters are written in a double yet separate correspondence. One set of letters are between Clarissa and her best friend Anne. Samuel views them as “virtue and honor, bearing an inviolable friendship for each other and writing upon the most interesting subjects.” Absolutely love their friendship. The second main correspondence is between two gentlemen of free lives: “one of them glorying in this talent for stratagem and invention, and communicating to the other in confidence all the secret purposes of an intriguing head, and resolute heart.” Throughout it all, there are other letters in-between giving the reader how the whole community who knows Clarissa their feelings, perceptive, and their opinions on such an important matter.
Set in the mid-18th century, we mostly follow Clarissa and her desperate pleas to allow herself the ability to refuse any man she deems she could and would not love, turns into a far bigger explosive of lies, perils, and risks that Clarissa could never begin to imagine. Samuel Richardson wrote this large tome to be read as a cautionary tale; “to caution parents against undue exertion of their natural authority over their children in the great article of marriage: and children against preferring a man of pleasure to a man of probity, upon that dangerous but too commonly received notion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband”
Mr. Richardson made me feel so many emotions: frustration (a lot), anger, disbelief, disgust, hope and almost everything in-between. He also made me laugh and cry. This epistolary was so real and the tension building through-out was amazing. I could pick this book back up knowing right where I left off when I been absent from it for months. As I was reading I couldn’t help but noticed Samuel Richardson was an inspiration to many other writers throughout the years. One of them, for me, is Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility character, Willoughby. To me he seemed to be inspired by one of the free “gentleman” in the novel.
Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady is known as one of the longest English novel, with 1534 pages. Samuel Richardson has done a massive feat, for this large tome is written in only letters. The series of letters are written in a double yet separate correspondence. One set of letters are between Clarissa and her best friend Anne. Samuel views them as “virtue and honor, bearing an inviolable friendship for each other and writing upon the most interesting subjects.” Absolutely love their friendship. The second main correspondence is between two gentlemen of free lives: “one of them glorying in this talent for stratagem and invention, and communicating to the other in confidence all the secret purposes of an intriguing head, and resolute heart.” Throughout it all, there are other letters in-between giving the reader how the whole community who knows Clarissa their feelings, perceptive, and their opinions on such an important matter.
Set in the mid-18th century, we mostly follow Clarissa and her desperate pleas to allow herself the ability to refuse any man she deems she could and would not love, turns into a far bigger explosive of lies, perils, and risks that Clarissa could never begin to imagine. Samuel Richardson wrote this large tome to be read as a cautionary tale; “to caution parents against undue exertion of their natural authority over their children in the great article of marriage: and children against preferring a man of pleasure to a man of probity, upon that dangerous but too commonly received notion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband”
Mr. Richardson made me feel so many emotions: frustration (a lot), anger, disbelief, disgust, hope and almost everything in-between. He also made me laugh and cry. This epistolary was so real and the tension building through-out was amazing. I could pick this book back up knowing right where I left off when I been absent from it for months. As I was reading I couldn’t help but noticed Samuel Richardson was an inspiration to many other writers throughout the years. One of them, for me, is Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility character, Willoughby. To me he seemed to be inspired by one of the free “gentleman” in the novel.
laura975's review against another edition
Ok to be truthful, I didn’t finish this. It’s not bad, nor badly written, but unlike Pamela I found this tedious. So little action took place throughout much of this book that I found it difficult to stop myself from skimming the pages.
jensteerswell's review against another edition
4.0
This would have been a really good book had it been edited down to a tidy 300-400 pages. It was 2200 pages on my ebook reader and I read it in 6 months, but with a good editor, it would be as much fun as Pride and Prejudice. Right now it's a slog in a lot of places.