In the summer of 1753, while controversy over the Marriage Act and the Jewish Naturalisation Act was in full flow, Richardson, by then a successful London printer and a famous author, wrote to Elizabeth Carter in support of both bills. The letter has been understood to indicate that he was a proponent of the Court Whig programme. But that is not quite so. On the marriage question in particular, Richardson’s opinions differed from those which motivated Hardwicke’s legislation, even though his novels also rejected the modes of clandestine marriage that the legislation abolished.

This chapter explores the precise nature of Richardson’s affinities and differences with the Hardwicke legislation in the context of his two marriage-focussed novels, Pamela and The History of Sir Charles Grandison.