Clarissa

Samuel Richardson’s tragic masterpiece unfolds entirely through letters, and its heroine is one of the great figures of English fiction. Clarissa Harlowe is a young woman of principle whose grasping family tries to force her into marriage with a man she despises, all to advance the Harlowe fortunes. Desperate, she puts her trust in Robert Lovelace, a charming and utterly ruthless libertine who spirits her away and then destroys her. What follows is a long, harrowing account of virtue under siege, told in the competing voices of victim and predator. Running to nearly a million words, it ranks among the longest novels in the language, and few books probe the psychology of cruelty and integrity so deeply. Free to read as a PDF and EPUB edition.