Clarissa's Painter Portraiture, Illustration, and Representation in the Novels of Samuel Richardson

In recent years there has been a new interest in the intersection of the visual and the verbal in Samuel Richardson's novels, from his use of spatial and pictorial imagery, to the contemporary illustrations to Pamela. This lavishly-illustrated monograph takes this approach one step further, by considering the novels in the context of eighteenth-century portraiture. Richardson first became conversant with the conventions ofcontemporary portrait-painting in the wake of the phenomenal success of Pamela. It was then that he sat for his first portrait, and commissioned the illustrations for the sixth edition of the novel. This study argues that these two events combined to give Richardson a new 'system of representation' for the depiction of individual character, and the articulation of power and affection within relationships. We see the first signs of this in Pamela II, but it reaches its full maturity inthe richthree-dimensionality of Clarissa. The same approach may, moreover, provide us with an answer to many of the tensions in Sir Charles Grandison, and explain the reader's ambivalence to Richardson's 'good man'.

Introducion1. Samuel Richardson's Paintive Art2. Eighteenth-Century Portraiture: From, Use, Meaning, Spectatorship3. Richardson's first novel: Images of Pamela from Carwitham to Highmore4. 'Now for a likeness to illustrate the surprising scene': Portraiture and representation in Clarissa5. 'I am a painter, madam': Portraiture and representation in Sir Charles GrandisonConclusion: Richardson's legacy: Portraiture and representation in Mansfield ParkBibliographyIndex