Samuel Richardson
Richardson invented the epistolary novel and transformed English fiction by making the inner life of ordinary people a legitimate subject for serious art. Pamela and Clarissa established the domestic and sentimental novel as the dominant form for a generation.
Works
- PamelaEpistolary novel of a servant girl resisting her employer's seduction with moral virtue
- ClarissaEpistolary novel of beautiful woman torn between duty and destructive obsessive love
- The History of Sir Charles GrandisonEpistolary novel of exemplary gentleman and his romantic entanglements and moral journey