stultiloquentia:

Right. So, Richardson was one of the first English novelists. He was Kind of a Big Deal, mentored and helped publish loads of people, and influenced other major authors including Fielding and Austen.

All his books are interesting in their own ways, but Clarissa is my favourite purely because the meta is so hilarious. Clarissa is an absolute unit of a book at 985000 words, and apparently Richardson had terrible beta readers, because he kept trying to find people to help him shorten it, but they were all so in awe of him that they only said, “Nooooo it’s perfect; I can’t bear to delete a single word; you’re the author of Pamela; you can do no wrong!” It’s about a virtuous maiden who gets tricked into eloping with a villainous rake named Lovelace, who imprisons and torments and attempts (unsuccessfully) to seduce her. Richardson published it serially in 1747-48, and was COMPLETELY FLUMMOXED AND APPALLED when, about halfway through, he started getting bundles of fanmail from female fans begging him to redeem Lovelace and let him marry Clarissa. Sexy, sexy, evil Lovelace, granddaddy of Spike and Draco and Loki and and and…. But he stuck to his guns! Lovelace got worse and worse (Richardson even retconned and revised the first few books), culminating in a drugged rape and a tragic end for all. His readers booed. And then published unauthorized sequels! A couple of English noblewomen rewrote the ending and published their version. (Copyright did not exist yet as such.) Richardson stamped his feet à la Anne Rice’s YOur inTEROgating MAH TEXT from the wrONG perSPECTIVE!!!!, and reprinted the whole thing with an extended foreword and an index of all the moral lessons and consolations to be found within its pages, just to make sure everyone knew how to read his book PROPERLY. And then he wrote The History of Sir Charles Grandison, a terrific doorstopper about a moral, pious, upstanding fellow, but nobody bought it.

Well, except Jane Austen, who turned it into a ten-minute theatrical spoof and performed it in her living room.

Readers and writers never change. And happily, unauthorized sequels are easier to propagate these days. ;)

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