[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-143275-en":3,"doc-seo-143275-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},143275,3848291630094,"Emma Wilson","https://eur-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45",2,"Literature","Clarissa - or - The History of a Young Lady","The abridged edition presents Clarissa, Samuel Richardson’s epistolary masterpiece, framed by an introduction and a new afterword. The text examines why novels resonate by mirroring lived experience, then focuses on Clarissa’s distinctive handling of time, where the present is intensely observed while the past is continually reconstructed and the future remains uncertain. Through letter-based narration, events are mediated by credibility, mood, and bias, making evidence provisional. Power struggles and subjective interpretation shape the story’s emotional and intellectual atmosphere.","Born in Derbyshire to a joiner, Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) received little formal education; in 1706, he was apprenticed to a printer in London. Thirteen years later, he set himself up as a stationer and printer and became one of the leading figures in the trade. At the age of fifty, he turned his hand to writing. His epistolary novels—including his masterpiece, Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady (1747–48)—brought him great success and a bevy of admirers.  \nSheila Ortiz-Taylor is Professor Emeritus of English at Florida State University, where she taught the British and American novel, as well as creative writing and women’s literature, since receiving her PhD from UCLA in 1973. A former Fulbright Fellow, she is the author of eight novels, including Homestead and Faultline.  \nLynn Shepherd has a doctorate in English literature from Oxford University, and is the author of Clarissa ’s Painter: Portraiture, Illustration, and Representation in the Novels of Samuel Richardson, published by Oxford University Press. She is also an award-winning novelist, and has published literary mysteries inspired by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and the lives of the Shelleys.  \nSAMUEL RICHARDSON  \nCLARISSA  \nor  \nThe History ofa Young Woman  \nABRIDGED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SHEILA ORTIZ-TAYLOR AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY LYNN SHEPHERD  \nSIGNET CLASSICS  \nINTRODUCTION  \nI  \nNovels fascinate us because they mirror back to us our own lives, which we perceive as hurried and unintelligible, yet somehow strangely significant. Characters in novels stand in for real people, so we watch them with interest as they struggle within a stream of events marked in the beginning by the phrase Once upon a time and rounded at the end with the phrase And they all lived happily ever after. We may learn something vicariously by attending to their dilemmas and even experience a kind of consolation, a sense of solidarity, as Joseph Conrad envisioned it, with humankind.1 Among the many preoccupations shared by people and characters is time.  \nCharacters, like real people, are preoccupied with time. Each of us has a personal relationship with time, and each of us experiences the trajectory of a life determined by time, though that understanding may flicker within us uncertainly and only on occasion. Reading a novel permits us to carefully observe this compelling phenomenon through a distancing lens. Novels throw illuminating light on temporal dimensions because time works both as subject matter and as form.  \nThis is particularly true of Clarissa, which though it records the events of a single year, does so with such density, such attention to detail, that we feel we have lived a whole year of real time in reading it. And in fact, because the novel was published over the space of a year, none of Richardson’s contemporaries could possibly read Clarissa’s experience faster than she could live it.  \nRichardson once characterized his technique as “this way of writing, to the moment.”2 The effect is an almost cinematic focus on the present, yet with a curious preoccupation with the perpetually reconstructed past and an anxiety about the unknowable future. Something could happen at any minute. Anything. Teetering on the present, reaching backward for support, eyes on the future, the characters reel from moment to moment. This reeling is the emotional atmosphere of Clarissa, but it is also its intellectual content.  \nThe language of the letters is tentative, speculative, and wondering. The characters formulate and revise their wishes, but they may be blocked by the wishes and particularly by the strategies of others. Everyone wants his or her own way.  \nThe struggle for power rages over a reality that is disputed territory. The world of Clarissa is presented subjectively, with subjectivity itself becoming part of our wondering inquiry—for in epistolary novels the reader can never directly experience what actually happened. Instead, what happened must be reconstructed for","cbCaidhWH8mo7zr7","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaidhWH8mo7zr7","pdf",2697265,1,662,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Time as Subject and Form\n## Present Tension and Reconstructed Past\n## Language of Tentative Letters\n## Power, Subjective Reality, and Evidence","[{\"question\":\"Why does the introduction say novels fascinate readers?\",\"answer\":\"Novels mirror readers’ own lives and invite vicarious learning through characters’ dilemmas, offering emotional consolation and solidarity while dramatizing shared concerns such as time.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the introduction describe Clarissa’s treatment of time?\",\"answer\":\"Although Clarissa covers a single year, it does so with density that makes readers feel they live a whole year. Since it was published over a year, contemporaries could not read it faster than the heroine could live it.\"},{\"question\":\"What role do letters play in shaping the reader’s understanding of events?\",\"answer\":\"In an epistolary novel, readers cannot directly experience what happened; instead they reconstruct it from accounts filtered through mood, bias, motives, and varying credibility. Evidence arrives gradually and may be misrepresented, yet the letters function as witness and evidence for truth as far as each character knows it.\"}]","Clarissa - or - The History of a Young Lady | PDF",1787694100,1019,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"clarissa-or-the-history-of-a-young-lady","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,53,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,47,50],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/clarissa-or-the-history-of-a-young-lady/143275/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":41,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-03","2026-08-25",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"Why does the introduction say novels fascinate readers?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"Novels mirror readers’ own lives and invite vicarious learning through characters’ dilemmas, offering emotional consolation and solidarity while dramatizing shared concerns such as time.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"How does the introduction describe Clarissa’s treatment of time?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"Although Clarissa covers a single year, it does so with density that makes readers feel they live a whole year. Since it was published over a year, contemporaries could not read it faster than the heroine could live it.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"What role do letters play in shaping the reader’s understanding of events?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"In an epistolary novel, readers cannot directly experience what happened; instead they reconstruct it from accounts filtered through mood, bias, motives, and varying credibility. Evidence arrives gradually and may be misrepresented, yet the letters function as witness and evidence for truth as far as each character knows it.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,100,104,109,114,119,124,129,132,136],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":101,"show_sort_weight":102,"slug":103},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":105,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":106,"show_sort_weight":107,"slug":108},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":110,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":111,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":120,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":122,"slug":123},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":126,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":128},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":130,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":131},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":133,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":134,"show_sort_weight":133,"slug":135},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":137,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":138,"show_sort_weight":105,"slug":139},19,"General","general"]