Correspondence of Richardson's Final Years (1755-1761)

Description

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was a prominent eighteenth-century printer and businessman as well as an important and influential English novelist. He was also a prolific letter writer. This volume in the first ever full edition of Richardson's correspondence offers a fascinating glimpse of the writer in his final years - at the height of his professional powers but facing the challenging circumstances of physical decline and commercial conflict. The collection of miscellaneous letters addresses a variety of issues ranging from details of Richardson's printing operation to his mentorship of women writers including Sarah Fielding, Anna Meades and Frances Sheridan. Other correspondents of note include Samuel Johnson, Meta Klopstock, Thomas Sheridan and Tobias Smollett. Taken together this series of letters draws an intimate picture of Richardson's professional and personal circles as they exchange family gossip, business advice, literary anecdotes and news of the day.

Shelley King is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen's University, Ontario. With John B. Pierce, she co-edited The Collected Poems of Amelia Alderson Opie (2009) and Opie's novels The Father and Daughter with Dangers of Coquetry (2003) and Adeline Mowbray (1999), as well as George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin (2014). Also with Pierce, she developed and maintains The Amelia Alderson Opie Archive, a website dedicated to resources for the study of Opie's works. King is co-editor of Refiguring the Coquette: Essays in Coquetry and Culture (with Yael Schlick, 2008). John B. Pierce is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen's University, Ontario. With Shelley King, he co-edited The Collected Poems of Amelia Alderson Opie (2009) and Opie's novels The Father and Daughter with Dangers of Coquetry (2003) and Adeline Mowbray (1999), as well as George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin (2014). Also with King, he developed and maintains The Amelia Alderson Opie Archive, a website dedicated to resources for the study of Opie's works. He is the author of Flexible Design: Revisionary Poetics in Blake's Vala or The Four Zoas (1998) and 'The Wond'rous Art': William Blake and Writing (2003).

'The editors ... have laboured hard tracking down almost all the names and references in Richardson's letters and they have provided extensive and illuminating notes and an entertaining introduction. My guess is the fastidious master printer Samuel Richardson would have approved of this volume.' Tibor Fischer, The Critic