The History of Sir Charles Grandison
Encyclopedia
Epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use...
by Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...
first published in February 1753. The book was a response to Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
's The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. First published on 28 February 1749, Tom Jones is among the earliest English prose works describable as a novel...
, which parodied the moral
Moral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
s presented in Richardson's previous novels. The novel follows the story of Harriet Byron who is pursued by Sir Hargrave Pollexfen. After she rejects Pollexfen, he kidnaps her, and she is only freed when Sir Charles Grandison comes to her rescue. After his appearance, the novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
focuses on his history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and life, and he becomes its central figure.
The novel incorporates an epistolary format similar to Richardson's previous novels, Clarissa
Clarissa
Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is the longest real novelA completed work that has been released by a publisher in...
and Pamela. Unlike those novels, Charles Grandison, the leading male character, is a morally good man and lacks the villainous intent that is manifested by the Lovelace or Mr. B (characters of Clarissa and Pamela respectively). Richardson was motivated to create such a male figure because of the prompting of his many female friends who wanted a counterpart to the virtues exhibited by Richardson's female characters.
Background
The exact relationship between Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling and Richardson's The History of Sir Charles Grandison cannot be known, but the character Charles Grandison was designed as a morally "better" hero than the character Tom Jones. In 1749, a friend asked Richardson "to give the world his idea of a good man and fine gentleman combined". Richardson hesitated to begin such a project, and he did not work on it until he was prompted the next year (June 1750) by Mrs. Donnelland and Miss Sutton, who were "both very intimate with one Clarissa Harlowe: and both extremely earnest with him to give them a good man". Near the end of 1751, Richardson sent a draft of the novel to Mrs. Donnellan, and the novel was being finalized in the middle of 1752.While Thomas Killingbeck, a compositor, and Peter Bishop, a proofreader, were working for Richardson in his print shop during 1753, Richardson discovered that printers in Dublin had copies of The History of Sir Charles Grandison and began printing the novel before the English edition was to be published. Richardson suspected that they were involved with the pirating of the novel and immediately fired them. Immediately following the firing, Richardson wrote to Lady Bradshaigh, 19 October 1753: "the Want of the same Ornaments, or Initial Letters [factotums], in each Vol. will help to discover them [if exported into England], although they should put the Booksellers Names that I have affixed. I have got some Friends to write down to Scotland, to endeavour to seize their Edition, if offered to be imported". There were four Dublin presses used to try to pirate the novel, but none of them were able to add the ornaments that could effectively mimic Richardson's own. However, there were still worries about the pirated copies, and Richardson relied on seven additional printers to speed up the production of Grandison.
In November 1753, Richardson ran an ad in the The Gentleman's Magazine
The Gentleman's Magazine
The Gentleman's Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term "magazine" for a periodical...
to announce the "History of Sir Charles Grandison: in a Series of Letters published from the Originals, — By the Editor of Pamela and Clarissa, London: Printed for S. Richardson, and sold by Dodsley in Pall Mall and others." The first four volumes were published on 13 November 1753 and the next two volumes appeared in December. The final volume was published in March to complete a seven volume series while a six volume set was simultaneously published. Richardson held the sole copyright to Grandison, and, after his death, twenty-fourth shares of Grandison were sold for 20 pounds each. Posthumous editions were published in 1762 (including revisions by Richardson) and 1810.
Plot
As with his previous novels, Richardson prefaced the novel by claiming to be merely the editor, saying, "How such remarkable collections of private letters fell into the editor's hand he hopes the reader will not think it very necessary to enquire". However, Richardson did not keep his authorship secret and, on the prompting of his friends like Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
, dropped this framing device from the second edition.
The novel begins with the character of Harriet Byron leaving the house of her uncle, George Selby, to visit Mr. and Mrs. Reeves, her cousins, in London. She is an orphan who was educated by her grandparents, and, though she lacks parents, she is heir to a fortune of fifteen thousand pounds, which causes many suitors to pursue her. In London, she is pursued by three suitors, Mr. Greville, Mr. Fenwick and Mr. Orme. This courtship is followed by more suitors: Mr. Fowler, Sir Rowland Meredith and Sir Hargrave Pollexfen. The final one, Pollexfen, pursues Byron vigorously, which causes her to criticize him over a lack of morals and decency of character. However, Pollexfen does not end his pursuits of Byron until she explains that she could never receive his visits again.
Pollexfen, unwilling to be without Byron, decides to kidnap her while she attended a masquerade
Masquerade ball
A masquerade ball is an event which the participants attend in costume wearing a mask. - History :...
at the Haymarket. She is then imprisoned at Lisson Grove with the support of a widow and two daughters. While he keeps her prisoner, Pollexfen makes it clear to her that she shall be his wife, and that anyone who challenges that will die by his hand. Byron attempts to escape from the house, but this fails. In order to prevent her from trying to escape again, Pollexfen transports Byron to his home at Windsor. However, he is stopped at Hounslow Heath
Hounslow Heath
Hounslow Heath is a public open space and local nature reserve to the west of Hounslow, a London borough. It now covers about , the residue of the historic Hounslow Heath that covered over .-History:...
, where Charles Grandison hears Byron's pleas for help and immediately attacks Pollexfen. After this rescue, Grandison takes Byron to Colnebrook, the home of Grandison's brother-in-law, the "Earl of L."
After Pollexfen recovers from the attack, he sets out to duel Grandison. However, Grandison refuses on the grounds that dueling is harmful to society. After explaining why obedience to God and society are important, Grandison wins Pollexfen over and obtains his apology to Byron for his actions. She accepts his apology, and he follows with a proposal to marriage. She declines because she, as she admits, is in love with Grandison. However, a new suitor, the Earl of D, appears, and it emerges that Grandison promised himself to an Italian woman, Signorina Clementina della Porretta. As Grandison explains, he was in Italy years before and rescued the Barone della Porretta and a relationship developed between himself and Clementina, the baron's only daughter. However, Grandison could not marry her, as she demanded that he, an Anglican Protestant, become a Catholic, and he was unwilling to do so. After he left, she grew ill out of despair, and the Porrettas were willing to accept his religion, if he would return and make Clementina happy once more. Grandison, feeling obligated to do what he can to restore Clementina's happiness, returns to Italy; however, Clementina determines she can never marry a "heretic", and so Grandison returns to England and Harriet who accepts him. They are married; and everyone is accorded their just deserts.
In a "Concluding Note" to Grandison, Richardson writes: "It has been said, in behalf of many modern fictitious pieces, in which authors have given success (and happiness, as it is called) to their heroes of vicious if not profligate characters, that they have exhibted Human Nature as it is. Its corruption may, indeed, be exhibited in the faulty character; but need pictures of this be held out in books? Is not vice crowned with success, triumphant, and rewarded, and perhaps set off with wit and spirit, a dangerous representation?" In particular, Richardson is referring to novels of Fielding, his literary rival. This note was published with the final volume of Grandison in March 1754, a few months before Fielding left for Lisbon. Before Fielding died in Lisbon, he included a response to Richardson in his preface to Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon.
Structure
The epistolary form unites The History of Sir Charles Grandison with Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa, but Richardson uses the form in a different way for his final work. In Clarissa, the letters emphasize the plot's drama, especially when Lovelace alters Clarissa's letters. However, the dramatic mood is replaced in Grandison with a celebration of Gandison's moral character. In addition to this lack of dramatic emphasis, the letters of Grandison do not serve to develop character, as the moral core of each character is already complete at the outset.In Richardson's previous novels, the letters operated as a way to express internal feelings and describe the private lives of characters; however, the letters of Grandison serve a public function. The letters are not kept to individuals, but forwarded to others in order to inform a larger community of the novel's action. In return, letters share the recipients' responses to the events detailed within the letters. This sharing of personal feelings transforms the individual responders into a chorus that praises the actions of Grandison, Harriet, and Clementina. Furthermore, this chorus of characters emphasizes the importance of the written word over the merely subjective, even saying that "Love declared on paper means far more than love declared orally".
Themes
20th century literary critic Carol Flynn characterizes Sir Charles Grandison as a "man of feeling who truly cannot be said to feel". Flynn claims that Grandison is filled with sexual passions that never come to light, and he represents a perfect moral character in regards to respecting others. Unlike Richardson's previous novel Clarissa, there is an emphasis on society and how moral characteristics are viewed by the public. As such, Grandison stresses characters acting in the socially accepted ways instead of following their emotional impulses. The psychological realism of Richardson's earlier work gives way to the expression of exemplarExemplar
Exemplar, in the sense developed by philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, is a well known usage of a scientific theory.According to Kuhn, scientific practice alternates between periods of normal science and extraordinary/revolutionary science...
s. In essence, Grandison promises "spiritual health and happiness to all who follow the good man's exemplary pattern". This can be taken as a sort of "political model of the wise ruler", especially with Charles's somewhat pacifist methods of achieving his goals.
Although Flynn believes that Grandison represents a moral character, he finds Grandison's "goodness" "repellent". Richardson's other characters, like Clarissa, also exhibit high moral characters, but they are capable of changing over time. However, Grandison is never challenged in the way that Clarissa is, and he is a static, passive character. Grandison, in all situations, obeys the dictates of society and religion, fulfilling obligations rather than expressing personality. However, a character like Harriet is able to express herself fully, and it is possible that Grandison is prohibited from doing likewise because of his epistolary audience, the public.
In terms of religious responsibility, Grandison, is unwilling to change his faith, and Clementina initially refuses to marry him over his religion. Grandison attempts to convince her to reconsider by claiming that "her faith would not be at risk". Besides his dedication to his own religion, and his unwillingness to prevent Clementina from being dedicated to her own, he says that he is bound to helping the Porretta family. Although potentially controversial to the 18th century British public, Grandison and Clementina compromise by agreeing that their sons would be raised as Protestants and their daughters raised as Catholics. In addition to the religious aspects, the work gives "the portrait of how a good marriage should be created and sustained". To complement the role of marriage, Grandison opposes "sexual deviance" in the 18th century.
Critical response
Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
was one of the first to respond to the novel, but he focused primarily on the preface: "If you were to require my opinion which part [in the preface] should be changed, I should be inclined to the supression of that part which seems to disclaim the composition. What is modesty, if it deserts from truth? Of what use is the disguise by which nothing is concealed? You must forgive this, because it is meant well." Sarah Fielding
Sarah Fielding
Sarah Fielding was a British author and sister of the novelist Henry Fielding. She was the author of The Governess, or The Little Female Academy , which was the first novel in English written especially for children , and had earlier achieved success with her novel The Adventures of David Simple...
, in her introduction to The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia, claims that people have an "insatiable Curiosity for Novels or Romances" that tell of the "rural Innocence of a Joseph Andrews, or the inimitable Virtues of Sir Charles Grandison". Andrew Murphy
Andrew Murphy
Andrew Murphy is an Australian triple jumper, best known for his bronze medal at the 2001 World Indoor Championships, where he achieved an Oceanian indoor record of 17.20 metres....
, in the Gray's Inn Journal, emphasized the history of the production when he wrote:
Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
, who favored the bildungsroman
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, bildungsroman or coming-of-age story is a literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood , and in which character change is thus extremely important...
and open plots, wrote in his "Prefatory Memoir to Richardson" to The Novels of Samuel Richardson (1824):
Although Scott is antipathetic towards Richardson's final novel, not everyone was of the same opinion; Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
enjoyed the novel so much that she adapted it into a play around 1800, although it wasn't published until 1980. Also, she claimed that the novel was so familiar that she could describe "all that was ever said or done in the cedar parlour".
Later critics believed that it is possible that Richardson's work failed because the story deals with a "good man" instead of a "rake", which prompted Richardson's biographers Thomas Eaves and Ben Kimpel to claim, this "might account for the rather uneasy relationship between the story of the novel and the character of its hero, who is never credible in his double love — or in any love." Flynn agrees that this possibility is an "attractive one", and conditions it to say that "it is at least certain that the deadly weighted character of Sir Charles stifles the dramatic action of the book." John Mullan suggests that the problem stems from Grandison's role as a hero when he says, "his hero is able to display his virtue in action; as a consequence, Sir Charles Grandison presents its protagonist without the minutely analyzed reflexes of emotion that brought his heroines to life."
Some critics, like Mark Kinkead-Weekes and Margaret Doody, like the novel and emphasis the importance of the moral themes that Richardson takes up. In a 1987 article, Kinkead-Weekes admits that the "novel fails at the [moral] crisis" and "it must be doubtful whether it could hope for much life in the concluding volumes". However, those like Jean Hagstrum believe that "Richardson's last novel is considerably better than can be easily imagined by those who have only heard about it. But admittedly it represents a falling off after Clarissa". Morris Golden simply claims that the novel is a book for old men.