Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

The eighteenth-century reading public was the same
middle and upper class that would have been involved with
estates and settlements and the burgeoning wealth of the
merchant class. Further proof of the public nature of
the problems of inheritance and class and the strains
placed on the virtue of young women is provided in
Richardson's early publications of Familiar Letters, at
least three of which are developed later in Clarissa
(Eaves and Kimpel 98).
Richardson began on the lower fringe of the middle
class and rose to the top of it. He knew the gentry and
the restrictions placed between classes. He was a
typical member of the hardworking middle class, and in
being so, his ideas and beliefs are representative of the
public body of discourse in the eighteenth century,
including those of virtue and inheritance law (Eaves and
Kimpel passim). From law to politics to love, family and
moral precepts, Richardsonf s position in his culture
made him privy to the arguments, resolutions, and popular
thinking that dominated public discussion and political
debate, all of which culminate in his masterpiece,
Clarissa.
Thus, the chaos in the Harlowe family caused by
Grandfather Harlowe's "uncomfortable" will, along with