Volume 18, Number 2 · February 10, 1972
Women's Liberator
By Ellen Moers
Samuel Richardson: A Biography
by T.C. Duncan Eaves, by Ben D. Kimpel
Oxford, 746 pp., $21.00
In the fascinating and important new scholarly biography of Samuel Richardson by T. C. Duncan Eaves and Ben D. Kimpel, there is nothing to challenge the familiar legend of Richardson's beginnings as a novelist—a man already fifty, a successful businessman, citizen, and family man, with nothing very special about him, so far as his friends were aware, except a gift for letterwriting. In 1739 two of those friends, two booksellers, asked him to write for publication a series of Familiar Letters to be used as models by people less gifted than he. Richardson tossed off several dozen such letters—they are splendid, lively productions—but stuck fast at Number 138: A Father to a Daughter in Service, on hearing of her Master's attempting her Virtue. 'Consider, my dear child, your reputation is all you have to trust to. And…come away directly (as you ought to have done on your own motion) at the command of Your grieved and indulgent Father.'
Review, 4310 words
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