CRITICISM

Ball, Donald L. “Richardson's Statement of His Theory of Fiction.” In Samuel Richardson's Theory of Fiction. The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1971, pp. 23-30.

Clarifies the principal reasons Richardson prized the epistolary form over narrative fiction: because letters are by nature rooted in the present and because they most actively engage the attention of the reader.

Brophy, Elizabeth Bergen. “Epistolary Form: An Easy and Natural Style.” In Samuel Richardson: The Triumph of Craft. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1974, pp. 38-49.

Examines Richardson's reliance on the epistolary genre and claims that that Richardson found the form more realistic, flexible, and morally instructive than the narrative novel.

Cohan, Steven M. “Clarissa and the Individuation of Character.” ELH 43 (1976): 163-83.

Examines how Richardson uses the epistolary convention to explore the difficulties in understanding a complex human personality.

Day, Robert Adams. Told in Letters: Epistolary Fiction before Richardson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966, 241 p.

Comprehensive study of the epistolary genre; includes a chronological list of English letter fiction from 1660 to 1740 and provides notes on epistolary miscellanies as well as discussions of novels and major figures.

Doody, Margaret Anne. A Natural Passion: A Study of the Novels of Samuel Richardson. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1974, 410 p.

Discussion of all of Richardson's novels, emphasizing the author's creative genius as revealed through the differences among the works.

Epstein, Julia L. “Fanny Burney's Epistolary Voices.” The Eighteenth-Century: Theory and Interpretation 27, No. 2 (Spring, 1986): 162-79.

Examines Burney's narrative strategy, paying special attention to the voices of female characters in her fiction.

Flynn, Carol Houlihan. Samuel Richardson: A Man of Letters. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982, 342 p.

Examines the tension between Richardson's moral and aesthetic principles in his novels and personal letters.

Gelley, Alexander. “The Two Julies: Conversion and Imagination in La Nouvelle Héloïse.” Modern Language Notes 92, No. 4 (May 1977): 749-60.

Discusses the apparent discrepancies between the passionate and witty Julie D'Etagne of the early part of La Nouvelle Héloïse. to the preachy, mystically inclined Mme. de Wolmar of the last half of the work.

Gillis, Christina Marsden. The Paradox of Privacy: Epistolary Form in Clarissa. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1984, 173 p.

Examination of the historical and dramatic space of the novel followed by a literary-historical approach to Richardson's epistolary form.

Jensen, Katharine Ann. Writing Love: Letters, Women, and the Novel in France, 1605-1776. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995, 217 p.

Investigates literary and sexual inequality as depicted in feminine epistolary in ancien régime France.

Kinkaid-Weekes. Samuel Richardson: Dramatic Novelist. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973, 506 p.

Interpretive readings of Richardson's novels followed by a general discussion of their social realism, psychology, and form.

Lindquist, Carol A. “Aphra Behn and the First Epistolary Novel in English.” Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association 3, No. 2 (1977): 29-33.

Views Behn's Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sisteras the first English epistolary novel.

Preston, John. “Les liaisons dangereuses: An Epistolary Narrative and Moral Discovery.” French Studies: A Quarterly Review 24 (1970): 23-36.

Explores the narrative method used to convey moral lessons in Laclos's novel.

Singer, Godfrey Frank. The Epistolary Novel: Its Origin, Development, Decline, and Residuary Influence. New York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1963, 266 p.

Broad survey of the form that examines hundreds of epistolary works and discusses their place in the history of the genre.

Thelander, Dorothy R. Laclos and the Epistolary Novel. Geneva: Droz, 1963, 167 p.

Examines Laclos's novel Les liaisons dangereuses against the background of the European tradition of letter fiction.

Visconti, Laura. “The Beginnings of the Epistolary Novel in England.” In Contexts of Pre-Novel Narrative: The European Tradition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994, 397 p.

Traces the development of the epistolary form in its social and cultural contexts.

Warner, William Beatty. Reading Clarissa. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979, 274 p.

Interpretation of Richardson's Clarissa, followed by a survey and analysis of previous critical approaches.

Würzbach, Natascha, ed. The Novel in Letters: Epistolary Fiction in the Early English Novel, 1678-1740. Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1969, 288 p.

Examines the use of letters in fiction before Richardson.

Zaczek, Barbara Maria. Censored Sentiments: Letters and Censorship in Epistolary Novels and Conduct Material. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997, 209 p.

Examines the censoring practices that influenced female epistolary writing in the eighteenth century.