1 The editions quoted in this paper are Clarissa, ed. Ross, A. (Harmondsworth, 1985)Google Scholar and The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless, introduced by Spender, D. (London and New York, 1987).Google Scholar

2 Raven, J., British fiction 1750–1770: a chronological check list of prose fiction printed in Britain and Ireland (Newark, 1987), 14–17Google Scholar. See esp. table 2, p. 14, and table 3, p. 15.Google Scholar

3 Betsy, 3.Google Scholar

4 Clarissa, 37.Google Scholar

5 See the similar presentation of James Harlowe as ‘an only son’ (ibid., 86).

6 See and Schapera, compare I., Kinship terminology in Jane Austen's novels, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland: Occasional Papers 33 (1977)Google Scholar. My work explores only some of the conventions of reference and address discussed in Schapera's path-breaking and exemplary study.

7 For example, Clarissa, 45, 57, 61.Google Scholar

8 For example, ibid., 199–201,203–4, 1255–7, 1374. See ‘niece Clary’, ‘cousin Clary’, and ‘miss’ by uncle Antony (ibid., 154–8). Note the subtle usage of titled and title-less names among the Harlowe siblings, expressing a range of sentiments from affection to anger and contempt: ‘Clary’, ‘sister Clary’, ‘Miss Clary’, ‘Miss Harlowe’, ‘my dear Bella’ or James Harlowe's angry usage of the full Christian name: ‘Undutiful and perverse Clarissa’ (ibid., 190).

9 Both also use terms of endearment, such as ‘my dear Miss Howe’, ‘my dearest friend’, etc. In some critical situations they resort to Christian names, as, for example, ‘my dearest Nancy’ (ibid., 336) and ‘my dear Clarissa’ (ibid., 993).

10 For example, Betsy, 270, 312, 352–3, 448–9Google Scholar. Compare, for example, the ranking of the four Misses Richardson in MrsSheridan's, letter of 20 Nov. 1756Google Scholar: ‘… Miss Richardson, Miss Patty, Miss Nancy, and Miss Sally, have all just claims to my warmest affection’, in Barbauld, A. L. ed., The correspondence of Samuel Richardson, vol. III (London, 1831), 149Google Scholar; see also Richardson's reference to Miss Westcomb's younger half-sister, Jobson, Miss Betsy, as ‘Miss Betsy’ (Correspondence, vol. II, 270, 328)Google Scholar, and Duncan-Eaves, T. C. and Kimpel, B. D., Samuel Richardson: a biography (Oxford, 1971), 198.Google Scholar

11 This applies mainly to adult siblings. Young seniors and juniors can be named in a similar way, as in Mr Harlowe's reference to his elder granddaughter and only grandson as ‘Miss Arabella and Master James’ (Clarissa, 53).Google Scholar

12 Note, however, that Mr James Harlowe Jun., the elder brother and only son in the Harlowe family, is named as a junior in relation to his father, Mr James Harlowe. His name thus designates him as a senior among his siblings, but as a junior in his patriarchal dynasty.

13 Compare, for example, Miss Howe's offensive use of the junior and infantine form while referring to MrHarlowe Jun, James.: ‘master Jemmy Harlowe, with his half wit’ (Clarissa, 499–500).Google Scholar

14 Ibid., 418, 524. Both she and her sister are referred to together as ‘the young Mrs Sorlings’ (ibid., 459). Clarissa also refers to her as ‘Miss Sorlings’ (ibid., 524). On pages 471 and 519, however, ‘Mrs Sorlings’ refers to the young women's mother.

15 Ibid., 264–5. Similar usages of ‘Mrs’ are especially evident in Pamela. Pamela, while a servant-maid, is referred to respectfully by her fellow-servants as ‘Mrs Pamela’: ‘Pray, Mrs Jervis, are we to lose Mrs Pamela? as they always call me’ (Richardson, S., Pamela (Harmondsworth, 1988), 79Google Scholar). In the course of the novel the servants are instructed to call her ‘madam’, she is promoted to ‘Mrs Andrews’, and finally she delights in her new name, ‘Mrs B’; see some examples on pages 136, 146–7, 193, 280–1, 287 and 386Google Scholar. The possible genteel connotation of ‘Miss’ can be deduced from the fact that in his first novel Richardson made errors in the way he used it. These he corrected in subsequent editions, sometimes following readers' advice. See, for example, how ‘Lady Towers’ in Pamela changes to ‘Miss Towers’, with the added comment: ‘Miss she is called, being a single lady, and yet cannot be less than thirty years of age’, and ‘some call her lady: but, indeed, you know we simple bodies are used to give that title to all fine folks, who live upon their means’ (ibid., 82, 85 and nn. 51, 57). Compare ‘she is called Miss Betsy Thoughtless… though she is a woman grown… but you know, Sir, they are all called Miss till they are married’ (Betsy, 254). Richardson's social leap seems to be reflected in Clarissa and in Sir Charles Grandison in the special care given to nuances in naming. See Eaves, T. C. D. and Kimpel, B. D., ‘Richardson's revisions of Pamela’, Studies in Bibliography 20 (1967), 61–88Google Scholar, and esp. p. 81. Richardson's personal correspondence, however, contains many usages of ‘Miss’. The use of the title ‘Mrs’ for unmarried women is possibly also more archaic. This is how Ralph Josselin recorded the burial of his unmarried daughter: ‘M[ist]r[es]s Anne Josselin… was buried in August 1st 1673’, quoted in Macfarlane, A., The family life of Ralph Josselin, a seventeenth-century clergyman (Cambridge, 1970), 113.Google Scholar

16 Fielding, S., Remarks on Clarissa (1749, repr. Los Angeles, 1985), 4Google Scholar. This condemnation is a rhetorical device leading to the praise that Clarissa is ‘as high a Tragedy as can possibly be wrote’ (ibid., 31).

17 See also MrBelford, to Lovelace, Mr (Clarissa, 605)Google Scholar, first specifying that he refers to ‘Miss Clarissa Harlowe’, and then continuing to refer to her as ‘Miss Harlowe’. See Mrs Howe's reference (ibid., 131), and the reversion from ‘Mrs Lovelace’ to Miss Harlowe' (ibid., 1052–4). Romantic usages can excuse the omission of title; for example, ‘Clarissa! – Oh, there's music in the name’ (ibid., 144), or ‘Betsy!…then Betsy let it be. Betsy shall henceforth become more famous than Cytherea was of old!’ (Betsy, 294). In this case, however, enthusiastic romanticism signifies fraud and deceit.

18 For example, ‘Captain Tomlinson’ alternating ‘Mr John Harlowe’ and ‘Mr Harlowe’, and Mrs Howe alternating ‘Mr Antony Harlowe’ and ‘Mr Harlowe’ (Clarissa, 684–8, 626–31Google Scholar).

19 Betsy, 425.Google Scholar

20 Rather than ‘sister’ or ‘dear Bella’; see Clarissa, 295. She notes their false condescension in naming her ‘Clary’ and ‘Sister’.

21 ‘Very well, very well, madam!, said my uncle, withdrawing his hands from mine’ (Clarissa, 310)Google Scholar. Similar manipulations of forms of address appear, for example, in Richardson's letters to Miss Sarah Westcomb: ‘Miss Westcomb’, ‘dear Madam’, ‘my dear’, ‘daughter of my heart’, and then ‘Mrs Scudamore’, ‘daughter and friend so dear to me’, etc. (Correspondence, vol. Ill, 250, 252, 268, 286, 322)Google Scholar. But when she delays her response, Richardson rebukes her using the formal form of address: ‘Let me say, Madam, that though I do not deserve to be favoured, I cannot bear to be neglected.’ Her quick answer shows that this code was deciphered: ‘let me ask, if you are not a naughty and undutiful papa, to tell me with a Madam that you cannot be slighted’ (ibid., 299, 308).

22 In the context of the same letter, see: ‘I must have a Cynthia, a Stella, a Sacharissa, as well as the best of them…’ (Clarissa, 143)Google Scholar. See also his reference to ‘the Harlowe Arabella’, and compare to Miss Howe's reference to a servant as ‘the Harlowe-Betty’ (ibid., 1108,404). The pretended identity of Sally and Polly also implies their re-naming as ‘Miss Martin’ and ‘Miss Horton’. See, for example, Mr Lovelace's play on Sally's double identity using the false but respectful, as well as the familiar form of reference appropriate to her true identity (ibid., 541). Lovelace's cousins are sometimes also mentioned by their Christian names: ‘why now, cousin Charlotte, chucking her under her chin… Charlotte reddened’ (ibid., 1032). However, they are usually called ‘Miss Charlotte’ and ‘Miss Patty’, ‘cousin Charlotte’ and ‘cousin Patty’, or referred to as ‘my two cousins Montague’ and even ‘the two Montague apes’ (ibid., 1029–39, 1218, 1201).

23 ‘I send this…But will follow by another; which shall have for its subject only my mother, myself, and your uncle Antony… I will endeavour to make you smile upon this occasion. For you will be pleased to know that my mamma has had a formal tender from that grey goose’ (italics mine). See also her pejorative ‘Mr Tony Harlowe’, and Mr Lovelace to Mr Belford, ‘her uncle Antony’, and ‘old Antony’ and ‘Goody Howe’ (Clarissa, 623, 630, 638, 416).Google Scholar

24 See also the affected address of the dishonest mantua-maker, ‘I hope…nothing has happened to my dear Miss Betsy’, while Miss Betsy addresses her as ‘Mrs Modely’ or simply ‘Modely’, a form reserved for servants (Betsy, 393, 389, 391Google Scholar). Compare, for example, Mrs Pilkington's variations in subscribing her name, which stress her pitiful state and great obligation: ‘Tristia’ and ‘Laetitia’, as well as ‘L. Pilkington’ and ‘Laetitia Pilkington’ (for example, Jun. 1743-Dec. 1745) (Correspondence, vol. II, 116, 121, 124, 133, 136, 138Google Scholar).

25 Similar errors were made – and later corrected – by Samuel Richardson. Mr B's elegant kinsman ceases to refer to his uncle as ‘Squire B’; in Clarissa such a usage is reserved for the servant Betty Barnes, who refers to Mr Lovelace as ‘Squire Lovelace’ (ibid., 369). Some of Mr B's familiar references to his noble sister as ‘my sister Davers’ are changed to the more formal’ Lady Davers’. Various other women referred to as ‘Lady’ are changed to ‘Mrs’ or ‘Miss’; see above, n. 15.

26 Betsy, 341, 526.Google Scholar

27 Clarissa, 64.Google Scholar

28 Compare Richardson's reference to his married sister as ‘my worthy Sister Warburgh’. Her Christian name is unknown (Eaves, and Kimpel, , Biography, 472).Google Scholar

29 The phrase ‘to change her name’ is indeed used as a familiar shorthand for indicating a woman's marriage. See, for example: ‘to live with him without a real change of name!’ (Clarissa, 431, 348)Google Scholar. This principle is also evident in Miss Howe's play on her mother's change of name: ‘my mamma Harlowe’ (ibid., 627). Compare Richardson's reference to his daughter's marriage: ‘I begin to think Polly is pretty near changing her name’ (2 08 1757, Correspondence, vol. Ill, 235).Google Scholar

30 Clarissa, 1036, 467, 452Google Scholar. See also ‘her sister Greme’ and ‘her farmer sister’ (ibid., 448). Widow Sorlings is in fact Mrs Greme's sister-in-law.

31 Betsy, 459–60.Google Scholar

32 Compare, for example, the naming of the heroine in Eliot's, G.Middlemarch (1871–2; Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar. According to the polite convention, she is introduced as ‘Miss Brook’, while her sister is named ‘Celia’. She is then announced as ‘Dorothea’. Later on, the reader is told that ‘she had become Mrs Casaubon’. The narrator, however, generally continues to refer to her as ‘Dorothea’ (Middlemarch, 1, 8, 76, and 154, 157passim).Google Scholar

33 Names such as ‘Cleora’, ‘Arabella’, ‘Charlotte’, etc. appear in the titles of many contemporary novels. This form of naming also associates Clarissa with another category of heroes and heroines referred to by their Christian names, namely, the Christian Saints. On the meaning of the name ‘Clarissa’, see Harris, J., Samuel Richardson (Cambridge, 1987), 51Google Scholar. See also Eaves, and Kimpel, , Biography, 209Google Scholar, quoting MrHill, to MrRichardson, , 5 11 1746.Google Scholar

34 Compare Richardson's reference to his daughter shortly after her marriage as ‘my daughter Ditcher’ (Correspondence, vol. II, 46)Google Scholar. This principle is also evident in the way ‘Miss Westcomb’ changes to ‘Mrs Scudamore’ (Correspondence, vol. Ill, 328–9Google Scholar). See above, n. 28. See also, for example, Josselin's, Ralph references to his married daughters as ‘my daughter Woodthorpe’, previously Jane, and ‘good daughter Smith’, previously Elizabeth, in Macfarlane, Ralph Josselin, 114Google Scholar. Macfarlane notes that the change in terminology from ‘Jane’ to ‘my daughter Woodthorpe’ ‘was a recognition that her primary allegiance was to her husband’. Nicholas Blundell also referred to his married daughters by their new surnames, as in ‘Gloves given at my Daughters Coppingers Marriage’ and ‘Coffipot given to my Daughter Pippard’, (The great diurnal of Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby, Lancashire, vol. III (1720–1728), The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 259, 261).Google Scholar

35 This influential view is spelled out in Macfarlane, A., The origins of English individualism (Oxford, 1978), esp. 144–7Google Scholar, and references there. Kinship terminology that separates off the individual and the nuclear family is seen by Macfarlane as one of the characteristics that separate early modern English society from ‘peasant societies’ (The culture of capitalism (Oxford, 1987), 7, 150–1)Google Scholar. On the ego-centred or ego-focused way of identifying kin, see also Houlbrooke, R. A., English family life, 1576–1716 (Oxford, 1982), 219Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, , The English family, 1450–1700 (London and New York, 1984), 39–45Google Scholar, and also references to sibling inequality there; and Wrightson, K., English society, 1580–1680 (London, 1982), 46Google Scholar. J. Goody notes that while historical conditions in England changed considerably, there were only few changes in the kingship terminology. He thus concludes that ‘the terminology itself is not a very sensitive indicator of what was taking place’. The present study suggests that there may have been changes in both the terminology and its usages that were overlooked by scholars such as Goody and Macfarlane. See Goody, J., The development of the family and marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1985), appendix III, esp. p. 277Google Scholar. See also Goody's example of the use of the term ‘cousin’, taken from Clarissa (ibid., 271).

36 Murdock, G. P., ‘Patterns of sibling terminology’ Ethnology 7 (1968), 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘Kin terms, patterns and their distribution’, Ethnology 9 (1970), 165–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These references were made by Leonardo Piasere in his conference presentation: ‘Fratelli ďltalia: fraternite et inegalite dans les terminologies de parente italiennes)’, Siena, 24 Jul.1991. I found them extremely illuminating.

37 See also Schapera's conclusion in Kinship terminology in Jane Austen's novels (p. 24).Google Scholar

38 For example, Aries, P., Centuries of childhood (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; Stone, L., The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500–1800 (Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar; and Trumbach, R., The rise of the egalitarian family: aristocratic kinship and domestic relations in eighteenth-century England (New York, 1978)Google Scholar. A different view, emphasising the continuity of companionship and affection, is offered, for example, in Laslett, P., The world we have lost (New York, 1965)Google Scholar, and Pollock, L., Forgotten children: parent-child relations from 1500 to 1900 (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar. Porter, R. stresses the force of familial authority and submission in eighteenth-century families, but also sees the development of new attitudes among the elite (English society in the eighteenth century (Harmondsworth, 1990), 27–30, 143–50, 268).Google Scholar

39 This is the case with Stone's influential thesis, above. For a compatible thesis on the side of literary history, see Watt, I., The rise of the novel (Harmondsworth, 1977 [1957])Google Scholar; and compare McKeon, M., The origins of the English novel, 1600–1740 (Baltimore, 1987).Google Scholar

40 See and compare Stone, L., The family, sex and marriage, 329–30, 668Google Scholar. Stone traces a decline in formal modes of address between husbands and wives during the eighteenth century, followed by a return of formality in the nineteenth century. The growing informality is seen by him as evidence of growing conjugal intimacy. The return to formality is interpreted as a return of patriarchy. Stone stresses, however, that during the ‘transitional period of the early eighteenth century the mode of address can be deceptive and may be a poor index of the true relationship between husband and wife’ (ibid., 330).

41 See for example, Wrightson, , English society, 1580–1680Google Scholar, esp. Part One, and Medick, H. and Sabean, D. W., Interest and emotion: essays in the study of family and kinship (Cambridge, 1988).Google Scholar

42 Goody, J., ‘Inheritance, property and women, some comparative considerations’, in Goody, J., Thirsk, J. and Thompson, E. P. eds., Family and inheritance: rural society in Western Europe, 1200–1800 (Cambridge, 1978), 11Google Scholar. Compare James Harlowe Jun.'s view that ‘daughters were but encumbrances and drawbacks upon a family’, and that ‘a man who has sons brings up chickens for his own table’ (Clarissa, 77).Google Scholar

43 In cases of complete or partial intestacy; see English, B. and Saville, J., Strict settlement: a guide for historians (University of Hull Press, 1983), 24Google Scholar, and Bonfield, L., ‘Affective families, open elites and strict family settlement in early modern England’, Economic History Review 39 (1986), 346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Some of the relevant works in a vast field are Habakkuk, H. J., ‘Marriage settlements in the eighteenth century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 32 (1950), 15–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clay, C., ‘Marriage, inheritance and the rise of large estates in England, 1660–1815’, Economic History Review 21 (1968), 503–18Google Scholar; Cooper, J. P., ‘Patterns of inheritance and settlement by great landowners from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries’, in Goody, et al. , Family and inheritanceGoogle Scholar; Trumbach, R., The rise of the egalitarian familyGoogle Scholar; Clay, C. ‘Property settlements, financial provisions for the family, and the sale of land by the great landowners, 1660–1790’, Journal of British Studies 21 (1981), 18–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bonfield, L., Marriage settlements, 1601–1740: the adoption of the strict settlement (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; English, B. and Saville, J., Strict settlement; Slater, M., Family life in the seventeenth century (London and Boston, 1984)Google Scholar; Stone, L. and Fawtier Stone, J. C., An open elite? (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar; and Staves, S., Married women's separate property in England, 1660–1833 (Cambridge, Mass., 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The relationship between strict settlement, male preference and family care is much debated; see Bonfield, L., ‘Strict settlement and the family’, Economic History Review 41, (1988), 461–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and E. Spring, ‘The strict settlement: its role in family history’, ibid., 454–60, and references there). My discussion emphasizes that a careful balance between male continuity and provision for other family members was perceived as the golden rule for inducing social and familial harmony. This view has been expressed in Stone, L., ‘Spring back’, Albion 17 (1985), 176–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Goody, J., ‘Inheritance, property and women’, in Goody, et al. , Family and inheritance, 10Google Scholar. For the rise in the proportion of families who produced only surviving daughters, see Outhwaite, R. B., ‘Marriage as business: opinions of the rise in aristocratic bridal portions’, in McKendrick, N. and Outhwaite, R. B. eds., Business life and public policy (Cambridge, 1986), 34–5Google Scholar, and references there. See also, for example, how Nicholas Blundell negotiated the marriage of his daughters, gradually changing his strategy as he realized that he was likely to have no male issue (The great diurnal of Nicholas Blundell, vol. Ill (1720–1728), 249, 255–6, 259.Google Scholar

46 This was generally true for males whose estate was not entailed and who were not bankrupt, insane, etc., and for unmarried females. For alienation of property with particular reference to children, see Macfarlane, , The origins of English individualism, esp. pp. 83–6Google Scholar; and Marriage and love in England, 1300–1840 (Oxford, 1986), esp. pp. 115–16Google Scholar. For female property rights, see Staves, S., Married women's separate property in EnglandGoogle Scholar, and Stone, L., Road to divorce, England 1530–1987 (Oxford, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Macfarlane, argues that ‘from local records and autobiographical material I have received the impression that disinheritance of male heirs by the use of a will was very infrequent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’ (The origins of English individualism, 85, and see 84–101)Google Scholar. In 300 years of Durham wills, investigated by Issa, C., not one case of total alienation is found (‘Obligation and choice: aspects of family and kinship in seventeenth-century County Durham’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, St Andrews University, 1987), 279 and 396 n. 13).Google Scholar

48 This is stressed by Pollock, L., in ‘Younger sons in Tudor and Stuart England’, History Today 39 (1989), 23–9.Google Scholar

49 Note for example, the effort and expense that parents invested in training their sons as apprentices to City merchants and tradesmen; see Earle, P., The making of the English middle class: business society and family life in London 1660–1730 (London, 1989), 86–95.Google Scholar

50 These points too are stressed in Pollock, L., ‘Younger sons in Tudor and Stuart England’.Google Scholar

51 Hollingsworth, T. H., ‘The demography of the British peerage’, Supp. to Population Studies 18, 2 (1964), esp. 8–28Google Scholar; Wrigley, E. A., ‘Marriage, fertility and population growth in eighteenth–century England’, in Outhwaite, R. B. ed., Marriage and society: studies in the social history of marriage (London, 1981), 137–85Google Scholar; see also Langford, E., A polite and commercial people: England 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989), 113–14.Google Scholar

52 Hufton, O., ‘Women without men: widows and spinsters in Britain and France in the eighteenth century’, Journal of Family History 9 (1984), 355–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Staves, , Married women's separate property, 213–18Google Scholar. See references to debate above, n. 44. On the rise in portions, see Outhwaite, , ‘Marriage as business: opinions of the rise in aristocratic bridal portions’, 21–37, and references there.Google Scholar

53 Betsy, 9Google Scholar. Note the shift to the legal and testamentary register. The italics are mine.

54 Ibid., 328.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid., 194.

58 Ibid., 329.

59 Ibid., 327.

60 Ibid., 326, 329.

61 Mrs Blanchfield is ‘seized with a disorder, which the physicians term a fever on the spirits’, and within three weeks she dies. Before her death she bequeathes half her fortune to Mr Trueworth and all her jewels to Miss Harriot (ibid., 401).

62 His departure for the grand tour before the death of his father signals that he is already regarded as the presumed heir, and can spend time and money on travel.

63 MrGoodman, , on his deathbed, entrusts his charge to Mr Thoughtless, proclaiming him as ‘the head of your family’ (Betsy, 305).Google Scholar

64 Ibid., 588.

65 Ibid., 51. Mr Francis's characterization as having a fiery temper might follow a stock characterization of the younger brother as an ‘angry young man’; see Thirsk, J., ‘Younger sons in the seventeenth century’, History 54 (1969), 360CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mr Francis, however, does not vent his anger on his elder brother.

66 Betsy, 62Google Scholar. The interruption of his studies also results in the possible forfeit of a ‘large gift’ that ‘a certain nobleman’ has promised to bestow on Mr Francis when he finishes his studies (ibid., 61).

67 Ibid., 244.

68 Ibid., 438. On this occasion Mr Thoughtless buys ‘twelve Caesars in bronze, and two fruit-pieces of Varelst's’.

69 Ibid., 448.

70 Ibid., 270–3.

71 Ibid., 98. See also ‘Why, then… need I make all this haste to put myself out of the way of fortune?’ (ibid., 425).

72 Ibid., 355.

73 Ibid., 409.

74 Thirsk, J., ‘Younger sons in the seventeenth century’Google Scholar; Pollock, L., ‘Younger sons in Tudor and Stuart England’.Google Scholar

74 Betsy, 40Google Scholar. Mr Goodman also expresses his hope that Mr Thoughtless and Mr Francis ‘would always live together in that perfect amity which both good policy and nature demands between persons of the same blood’ (ibid., 306).

76 I am grateful to Christopher Clay for pointing out to me the combined inequality and equality in this inheritance pattern.

77 The importance of property and its transmission in Clarissa is studied by two scholars: Hill, C., ‘Clarissa Harlowe and her times’, in his Puritanism and revolution: studies in interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th century (London, 1958), 367–94Google Scholar, and Todd, J., Women's friendship in literature (New York, 1980), 9–68Google Scholar. Hill's influential essay is quoted in numerous subsequent studies as historical background to Clarissa, and its explanations are very useful. However, I disagree with the line of interpretation that Clarissa represents ‘the supreme criticism of property marriage’, and a Puritan and bourgeois revolt against ‘the feudal-patriarchal family’; nor do I think that she ‘looked forward to a society in which women shall have attained full equality and status’ (‘Clarissa Harlowe and her times’, 383, 394). My reading of Clarissa is that it does not denounce an authoritarian and patriarchal order, but rather its passionate and unreasonable abuse. The main focus of Todd's attention, namely the friendship between Anna Howe and Clarissa Harlowe, is different to mine. But her view that Clarissa's legacy ‘causes social disfunction by exaggerating a weakness’ in the patriarchal transmission of property is similar to the argument which I develop here.

78 Clarissa, 42, 79Google Scholar. Mr Lovelace is the only male in his branch of the family, after Lord M: ‘I am the hopes of the family’, he says (ibid., 1201). In a moment of anger Lord M threatens Mr Lovelace that he will alter his will, ‘and all that he could leave from me, he would’ (ibid., 1033). The proposed settlements upon Mr Lovelace's marriage with Clarissa, however, reveal the family hopes (ibid., 664–7, 1042). Mr Lovelace refers to Lord M as ‘the head of our family’, although he thinks him a fool (ibid., 663). Compare the same usage in the cases of the Harlowe brothers and James Harlowe Jun. (ibid., 157), and Mr Thoughtless (Betsy, 305).

79 Mr Belton inherits his uncle's estate.‘Poor Belton!’, says Mr Belford,‘… I fear, I fear, he came too soon to his uncle's estate’ (Clarissa, 1242, 1099). After Mr Helton's death, the ‘heir at law’ is a nephew in Antigua (ibid., 1271). MrHelton's, indigent sister has no share in the estate; see pp. 1271, 1303.Google Scholar

80 Mr Lovelace has ‘a very good paternal estate’, unencumbered by debts, which brings ‘a clear 2000 [pounds a year]’ (Clarissa, 78–9, 42)Google Scholar. As in the case of Mr Trueworth, this is the hint that reveals that his father is dead. Mr Belford has a paternal estate of ‘upwards of £1000 by the year’ (ibid., 1293). He later inherits his uncle's estate; see pp. 1244, 1293. With this ‘increased fortune’ he is ready to offer ‘handsome settlements’ to a ‘good family’, that will credit him with a sister or a daughter (ibid., 1090). See also the false Captain Tomlinson's reference to his ‘paternal estate’ (ibid., 684). The system is also evident regarding females. Miss Howe is left a handsome fortune by her father, which is to pass as her portion to Mr Hickman. Clarissa's mother brings a great fortune to the Harlowe family; her marriage portion is very large, and she also benefits from the deaths of several relations (ibid., 53, 188).

81 Mr Helton's sad story is used to elaborate the evils of keeping a mistress: one result may be the interruption of paternal descent; another is the interruption of rightful descent. ‘If he has children, and has reason to think them his, and if his lewd courses have left him any estate, he will have cause to regret… when he finds that it must descend to some relation, for whom whether near or distant, he cares not one farthing… And were we to suppose his estate in his power to bequeath as he pleases; why should a man resolve, for the gratifying of his wicked humour only, to bastardize his race?’ (Clarissa, 614, 612Google Scholar). The mistress and her lovers also squander the estate (ibid., 1099, 1089, 1187). Compare Lord M's concern about legitimate descent (ibid., 664). Compare also Betsy, 306: ‘a mistress, having no reputation of her own, regards not that of her keeper’.Google Scholar

82 MrHickman, has knowledge of legal matters, ‘being designed for the law had his elder brother lived’ (Clarissa, 622).Google Scholar

83 Ibid., 754. See also Todd, , Women's friendship in literature, 9.Google Scholar

84 Clarissa, 53Google Scholar. This acquired estate amounts to less than half of the grandfather's real-estate; see also p. 194. The grandfather's inherited estate presumably descends to his eldest son, Mr John Harlowe, and is intended to descend from him to Clarissa's brother, James Harlowe Jun. The fact that the grandfather does not leave all his wealth to Clarissa, and that various members of the family have other and larger estates is an important detail that should be kept in mind while considering the social-economic status of the Harlowes, their interests, and their aims. The grandfather's provisions for Clarissa's legacy are as follows. The estate is held in trust by Clarissa's elder uncle, Mr John Harlowe, and her cousin, Colonel Morden. At eighteen years of age, if Clarissa is still single, she is empowered to make a will, providing that she devises the great part of the estate to whom she pleases of the family. She is free to choose her heir from among the family members. This condition is entered in the will by the grandfather in the hope that it will create respect to Clarissa, as the grandfather rightly suspects that the unequal bequest will cause envy (ibid., 1191).

85 Ibid., 194.

86 Ibid., 95.

87 Ibid., 295, 77–8. Uncle Antony says that it was more for Clarissa's sake that he remained single, than for the sake of any other of the family (ibid., 310). Later Colonel Morden, Clarissa's cousin, also promises to settle his wealth on her, if he dies unmarried and without children (ibid., 1289). ‘Then, as to fortune-what her father, what her uncles, and what myself intended to do for her, besides what her grandfather had done - there is not a finer fortune in the country’, he says (ibid., 1279). Clarissa's siblings fear these plans: ‘This little siren is in a fair way to out-uncle as well as out-grandfather us both!’ (ibid., 80); see also Hill, , ‘Clarissa Harlowe and her time’, 370.Google Scholar

88 Clarissa, 53Google Scholar. This combination of landed and commercial interests has been explored in Cain, P. and Hopkins, A., ‘Gentlemanly capitalism and British expansion overseas. I. The old colonial system, 1688–1850’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 39 (1986), 501–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

89 Clarissa, 211Google Scholar. Mr Lovelace, who is very proud of his descent, directs his scorn at the Harlowes, saying ‘everybody knows Harlowe Place – for, like Versailles, it sprung up from a dunghill within every elderly person's remembrance’ (Clarissa, 161Google Scholar). Another detail that may suggest an upstart status is ‘the young plantations of elms and limes affording yet but little shade or covert’ around Harlowe Place (ibid., 352). See Raven, J., ‘Pretensions to land’, in The making of new wealth (Oxford, forthcoming)Google Scholar. I am indebted to Violet Khazoum for this insight, and to James Raven for allowing me to consult his manuscript.

90 Clarissa's grandfather was also already in possession of a collection of family pictures, and a stock of family plate (Clarissa, 194Google Scholar). The plate has not been changed since the grandfather's death, and is said to be ‘of two-or-three generations standing’.

91 Ibid., 132. Clarissa certainly thinks her family ‘no inconsiderable nor upstart one’ (ibid., 11). In the same context she criticizes her brother's plan to dispose of her and her sister with no more than ‘ten or fifteen thousand pounds apiece’.

92 Ibid., 1036. The class identity of the Harlowes and their status in relation to Lovelace are interpreted differently by other critics. Kilfeather, S., in a summarizing article, ‘The rise of Richardson criticism’, in Doody, M. A. and Sabor, P. eds., Samuel Richardson: tercentenary essays (Cambridge, 1989), 254Google Scholar, notes how ‘for a long time the admittedly exemplary historical analyses of Watt and Christopher Hill were hardly modified or supplemented’, and ‘readers debating political and textual interpretations cited without qualm thirty-year-old thinking on the rise of the Puritan middle-classes’. T. Eagleton, for example, recognizes that the Harlowes are members of the gentry. But he nevertheless generally considers them as ‘bourgeois’, saying: ‘I use the term “bourgeois” here in a broad sense: strictly speaking, the Harlowes are gentry, as indeed is Lovelace. But Lovelace has close aristocratic connections and lives an aristocratic ideology, whereas the Harlowes, although in no sense social upstarts, are closer ideologically to the middle class’ (The rape of Clarissa (Oxford, 1982), 76 n. 80)Google Scholar. The contradiction between ‘bourgeois property’ and ‘aristocratic anarchy’, represented by the Harlowes and Lovelace, continues to direct Eagleton's interpretation, until Clarissa becomes in ideological terms ‘a key phase in English class history’ (ibid., 88–9). Eagleton's description of class identity rests here on an assumed articulation of ideology, rather than, and indeed regardless of, economic and social factors. This weakens his analysis. Despite explanations about the middle-class drive for hegemony (e.g. ibid., 1–8, 90), it remains unclear why we should assume that a considerable gentry family such as the Harlowes represents the social values of the middle class, and why it is unable to represent the values associated with its own milieu. My understanding of Clarissa is based on the identification of both the Harlowes and Lovelace as gentry; both also have ties with the aristocracy. Mr Lovelace's family is ancient and very wealthy. We can infer that he is descended from the peerage on his mother's side. The family of Clarissa's mother, too, is both noble and wealthy. The Harlowe line has emerged from the lower gentry two-three generations before Clarissa's time, and aspires to the peerage. On the fusion of landed and financial interests, see above, n. 88.

93 See and compare Todd, , Women's friendship in literature, 9–68.Google Scholar

94 See, for example, the way in which Lord M and his family plan to channel the family wealth to Mr Lovelace, in order to qualify him for Lord M's title, or to revive the title of an Earl which belonged to the father of Lord M's half-sisters, and which ‘had been for some time extinct on failure of heirs male’. Compare it to James Harlowe Jun.'s ambitious plan to have all the real estates in the family settled on him, including the grandfather's, father's and two uncles' estates, and the remainder of their respective personal estates, etc., in order to make ‘a noble fortune’, that will entitle James Jun. to hope for a peerage. The grandfather's bequest ‘lopped off one branch’ of these expectations (Clarissa, 77–9Google Scholar). See also Hill, , ‘Clarissa Harlowe and her times’, 369.Google Scholar

95 ‘Such a sun in a family where there are none but faint twinklers… Their eyes ache to look up at you. What shades does your full day of merit cast upon them!’ (Clarissa, 129).Google Scholar

96 Once a year for form's sake she goes over the books. But she continues to take her little pocket-money from her father's bounty ‘without a shilling addition to her stipend’ (Clarissa, 195, 41–2)Google Scholar. Significantly, the father manages the estate although other relatives are instituted as its trustees. He later sets conditions on its return to Clarissa (ibid., 1256).

97 Mr Solms is a country gentleman. He has inherited his estate from his uncle, Sir Oliver, and he has been brought up as his uncle's heir. Clarissa's grandfather's estate is situated between two of Mr Solms's estates, and is therefore of double value to him. For Mr Solms and his social status, see Clarissa, 81, 101, 153, 156, 224.Google Scholar

98 James Harlowe Jun. arranges with Mr Solms an exchange of estates that is highly convenient for him, and will also increase the family's influence in the county (ibid., 101). The Harvey family is under obligation to James Jun., and cannot resist his plan (ibid., 82, 212). Mr Antony Harlowe has strong ties with Mr Solms. Clarissa's father signed the settlements. Miss Harlowe's immediate interest is to prevent the uncles from favouring Clarissa, in addition to her general desire to revenge her younger sister's preeminence.

99 Ibid., 62. This is incorporated in Mr Solms's ‘noble settlement’, which consists of settling all of his worth on Clarissa, with the condition that if she dies childless, and if he has no issue by other marriage, the combined estate will revert to the Harlowe male heir. It is extremely significant that Clarissa's brother is willing to persecute her on the ground of ‘a hope so remote’ (ibid., 81, 83, 152). See and compare Hill, ‘Clarissa Harlowe and her times’, 370–1. This settlement is yet another example of the disrupted manner in which property is transmitted in this tragedy, since in order to make it, Solms also has ‘to rob all his relations of their just expectations’. For this he is accused by Clarissa of being a niggardly and upstart man, who possesses his riches ‘in injury of the next heir’ (ibid., 81, 92, 153). In contrast, Mr Lovelace offers generous settlements: to settle on Clarissa her whole estate by way of jointure, or another estate in lieu, and a vested trust of £400 p.a. He is even willing to marry her without her estate and encourages her to resign it (ibid., 171, 1169); ‘I have no view to her fortune’, he says. Clarissa responds with generosity and prudence. She proposes to settle for £200 p.a., and offers to use the sums arisen from the estate for the family good and future contingencies (ibid., 596–7,621–3,654–5). The settlements that Lovelace's whole family offers are splendid indeed (ibid., 1042–3). For a different account of Lovelace's offer see Hill, , ‘Clarissa Harlowe and her times’, 376.Google Scholar

100 Clarissa, 177.Google Scholar

101 Ibid., 60.

102 Ibid., 194.

103 Ibid., 95; see also ‘I have in my own right… a fortune not contemptible: independent of my father, if I had pleased; but I never will please’ (ibid., 1105).

104 ‘I am determined never to consent to a litigation with my father’ (Clarissa, 350)Google Scholar. See also her later statement, ‘as to my estate, the enviable estate which has been the original cause of all my misfortunes, it shall never be mine upon litigated terms’ (Clarissa, 754)Google Scholar; see also Todd, , Women's friendship in literature, 9Google Scholar. Until her last days Clarissa does not ask for her estate or its produce. All she asks is a last blessing. See, for example, p. 1197.

105 Clarissa, 242–3Google Scholar. See also: ‘God forbid that I should ever think myself freed from my father's reasonable control, whatever right my grandfather's will has given me! He, good gentleman, left me that estate as a reward of my duty, and not to set me above it…’ (ibid., 321).

106 Clarissa offers to make over the grandfather's estate to her sister and her heirs forever, and devise her brother and sister as her heirs. According to the grandfather's provisions, it is within her power to bequeath the estate to a sibling. But the family rejects her plan, declaring it to be ‘equally against law and equity’ and injurious to the family reputation. Their argument is that Arabella and Mr Solms will have no security of Clarissa's resignation. Legally, Clarissa will be able to resume the estate, and, if she breaks her promise and marries, her husband will be able to claim the estate ‘under the will’ (ibid., 255–6).

107 Ibid., 304–5. See discussion of Clarissa's will in Harries, J., Samuel Richardson (Cambridge, 1987), 54Google Scholar and, reference there to Donaldson, I., The rape of Lucretia: a myth and its transformation (Oxford, 1982), 68–73Google Scholar; Tanner, T., Adultery in the novel: contract and transgression (Baltimore and London, 1979), 100–12.Google Scholar

108 Clarissa, 1412–20Google Scholar; note her repeated assertion ‘I wished not for an independence upon my father's pleasure.’ Note that the Harlowe family pictures are bequeathed to Mr John Harlowe, who had previously ‘expressed some concern that they were not left to him, as eldest son’ (ibid., 1414).

109 Ibid., ‘Postscript’, 1495.

110 Ibid., ‘Postscript’, 1498–9. See Hills, F. W., ‘The plan of Clarissa’, in Carroll, J. ed., Samuel Richardson: a collection of critical essays (Englewood Cliffs, 1969), 83Google Scholar, and Hill, , ‘Clarissa Harlowe and her times’, 371.Google Scholar

111 Clarissa, 1493Google Scholar. The symmetry is clear: while the Harlowe line dwindles and the last of the Lovelaces dies, two other lines are launched, Hickman and Belford.

112 See, for example, Watt, I., The rise of the novelGoogle Scholar; Brissenden, R. F., Virtue and distress: studies in the novel of sentiment from Richardson to Sade (London, 1974)Google Scholar; Doody, M. A., A natural passion: a study of the novels of Samuel Richardson (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar; Hagstrum, J. H., Sex and sensibility: ideal and erotic love from Milton to Mozart (Chicago, 1980)Google Scholar; Eagleton, , The rape of Clarissa;Google Scholar. Mullan, J., Sentiment and sociability: the language of feeling in the eighteenth century (Oxford, 1988), esp. ch. 2Google Scholar. See the critical survey in Kilfeather, , ‘The rise of Richardson criticism’, 251–66.Google Scholar

113 Eagleton, , The rape of Clarissa, 14–16, and references thereGoogle Scholar. See especially the reference to Stone, The family, sex and marriage (Harmondsworth, 1979 edn), ch. 5:Google Scholar ‘The decline of the relatively open, impersonal system of traditional kinship, with its primary economic and genealogical rather than affective bonds, has produced by Richardson's era a considerably more closed, “nuclear family”, whose patriarchal structure reinforces an authoritarian state and fulfills some of the religious functions traditionally performed by the state’ (Eagleton, The rape of Clarissa, 14, n. 14); see a subsequent reference in n. 15 to Aries, P., Centuries of childhood, especially part 3.Google Scholar

114 Eagleton, , The rape of Clarissa, 77 and n. 81Google Scholar, quoting Hill, ‘Clarissa Harlowe and her times’. It is fascinating to see how Eagleton's Marxist interpretation marries not only with Hill's reading of Clarissa, but also with Stone's liberal thesis. This may be explained by their shared sense of chronology which traces the rise of the nuclear family, the rise of Puritanism, the rise of the bourgeoisie and the rise of the novel. These processes are seen as both evidence and symptoms of the rise of modernity.

115 The ‘contradictions of subordination in equality which were inherent in the Puritan view of women’ are discussed in Hill, , ‘Clarissa Harlowe and her times’, 386–91Google Scholar, and Eagleton, , The rape of Clarissa, 76–8.Google Scholar

116 Eagleton, , The rape of Clarissa, 14, 16.Google Scholar