Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson

 

 

 

 

 
Samuel Richardson (baptised 19 August 1689 – 4 July 1761) was an English writer and printer best known for three epistolary novels: Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753). He was a printer and publisher for most of his life, printing almost 500 works, including journals and magazines. He was known to work periodically with the London bookseller Andrew Millar. Richardson had been apprenticed young to a printer, whose daughter he eventually married. He lost his first wife along with five sons, but remarried and had four daughters who reached adulthood, but no male heirs to continue the print shop. As it ran down, he wrote his first novel at the age of 51 and immediately joined the popular and admired writers of his day. The leading figures Richardson knew included Samuel Johnson and Sarah Fielding, and also the eminent physician and behmenist George Cheyne and the theologian and writer William Law, whose books he printed. At the request of Law, Richardson printed some poems by John Byrom. In the London literary world he rivalled Henry Fielding, and the two responded to each other's literary styles. His name joined the Index Librorum Prohibitorum established by the Pope listing books Catholics were not allowed to read.