She looked upon the picture, before she gave it her-Sweet and ever-amiable friend!-Companion!-Sister!-Lover! said she-and kissed it four several times, once at each tender appellation. and to give it to me, when she was departed, for that gentleman. Lovick, desiring her to fold it up in white paper, and direct it, To Charles Hickman, Esq. She has just now given from her bosom, where she always wore it, a miniature picture, set in gold, of Miss Howe. Belford, she said, would know the rest by her will. The lady has been giving orders, with great presence of mind, about her body! directing her nurse and the maid of the house to put her in the coffin as soon as she is cold. He added, that he had thoughts, when he came over, of fixing here for the remainder of his days but now, as it was impossible his cousin could recover, he would go abroad again, and re-settle himself at Florence or Leghorn. He wished he had not come to England at all, or had come sooner and hoped I would apprize him of the whole mournful story, at a proper season. This wrung his heart and bitterly did he exclaim as well against you as against her implacable relations. I acquainted him with the truth of her parting with some of her apparel. He asked me after his cousin’s means of subsisting and whether she had accepted of any favour from me he was sure, he said, she would not from you. John Harlowe, by his servant, ‘That they might spare themselves the trouble of debating about a reconciliation for that his dear cousin would probably be no more before they could resolve.’ The Colonel tells me that he had written to Mr. He published and befriended many of the leading writers of his time, including Daniel Defoe, Sarah Fielding, and Samuel Johnson. Throughout the remainder of his career, he published two more epistolary novels-Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753)-while continuing his work as a prominent and successful printer.

During this time, Richardson turned to fiction, publishing his first novel, Pamela or, Virtue Rewarded in 1740, a work now considered the first modern novel. Devastated, Richardson eventually remarried and focused on his career, earning a contract with the House of Commons in 1733 and hiring several apprentices to assist him at his shop. Having married in 1721, Richardson and his wife Martha Wilde suffered the loss of several sons before Martha succumbed to illness in 1732.

He established his own shop in 1719 and received his first major contract in 1723, printing a bi-weekly Jacobite newspaper which was soon censored. Born the son of a carpenter, Richardson received a limited education before becoming a printer’s apprentice. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was an English writer and printer.

The history of clarissa harlowe