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Rating: 
Summary: If You Are An English Student...
Review: ...you'll probably appreciate (and perhaps even enjoy)this novel. As other reviewers have noted, it is impossible to read many novels post-1750 without acknowledging the impact that Richardson's novel has had on English literature. It should be noted that the abridged version is indeed unacceptable for the simple reason that it attempts to purge letters or portions of letters that do not "advance" the plot. Clarissa is not at all about "plot", and if you read it for that purpose you will probably give up long before the conclusion of its 1,500 pages. (I think Samuel Johnson had something to say about that, too...). The unabridged version allows you to form a more nuanced view of many of the characters (including Clarissa herself). If you read the abridged version, prepare to be disappointed at the one-dimensional characterizations. The (unabridged) novel is, aside from its literary significance, good but not great. If it was a 300 or 400 page novel, I would absolutely encourage people to read the novel. Since it is 1500 pages in length, however, it is really not worth the time that is required to plod through it. If you ARE an English student, by all means spend a summer reading the unabridged version. (You'll probably end up having to read it for class, anyway...I did). For everyone, else, though the unabridged version is just not worth the time, and the abridged version is a poor subsitute.
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Summary: Where have you been all my life???
Review: I can't believe I'm over 50 and just discovering this book. Do not let the publication date or its length deter you. If you especially prefer the lyricism of older English manners, language, and thought, this book is a page-turner WAY outshining the drivel being published today.
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Summary: I couldn't put it down
Review: I decided to read Richardson's CLARISSA after having so enjoyed his PAMELA in an eighteenth-century literature course. As excellent as PAMELA is, CLARISSA is truly Richardson's masterpiece. The author's technique of "writing to the moment" is at its most riveting here, not least during the title character's death scene. I found this scene in particular (as well as the entire section of the novel that leads up to it) extremely moving; for me it is the novel's highlight. If you enjoy novels, eighteenth century ones especially, you must read CLARISSA; it does take a long time to read, but it is definitely worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Caveat before tackling this great but weighty novel
Review: I have to confess to reading this novel partly out of guilt, since I kept coming across references to it elsewhere. While I did enjoy it, it was largely this literary conscience that kept me going. It is indeed a superb novel, and you can read the other reviews to see why, but it is very slow and I think I'm not the only one who found it quite a slog, or got frustrated from time to time by Clarissa's unspeakable virtuousness (although her distraught state after the rape is portrayed most movingly). As a comparison, read Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses, one of my favourite novels and one which makes one wonder why the epistolary form was abandoned. A beautifully structured, enthralling study of sexual intrigue in eighteenth-century France, it is far more exciting and the characterisation is extraordinary, exploring both good and vicious characters with great depth and achieving the rare feat of making characters at both ends of the scale human, realistic and sympathetic. One of the main differences, apart from the driven plot of Les Liaisons against the thoughtful consideration of what in Clarissa is, classically, basically an expansion of one incident, is that Laclos explored human depravity with such rigorous honesty and fascinated sympathy that he caused a great scandal and got himself banned; Richardson, on the other hand, always had an eye out for the moral lesson (he gives everyone their just deserts at the end in quite a scrupulous manner) and to my mind his portrayal of human nature is less believable, and certainly less interesting. Clarissa would have been far more likeable for a few faults (even Melanie in Gone with the Wind makes a sarcastic comment once), and the interaction with Lovelace would perhaps, I feel, have been deeper and more tragic if she had lowered her standards and communicated with him more. Clarissa is a densely woven, lovingly detailed novel with a plot that can be summed up in one sentence, and I think that whether it appeals to you depends very much on whether or not this is to your taste. I certainly found it of great interest in relation to other literature and will no doubt dip into it again, but I couldn't face a re-read. One problem with boasting about having finished it is that even though it was much harder work than War and Peace (and twice as long), most people won't have heard of it!
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Summary: Clarissa's Triumph
Review: I haven't finished the book yet, but so far this is one of the best books ever. I just know things will turn out well for Clarissa. She's the best. I bet she'll get married to some foreign king and live in a Swedish castle with him. Lovelace is okay, but she can do better. I bet you she dumps him at the end of the book. I can see it now. She'll probably say: "Don't go there Lovelace" and walk out the door. I can't wait to see what this book has in store for Clarissa Harlowe. Best character ever! Best book ever!
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Summary: After Clarissa and Pamela....
Review: If you loved Pamela and Clarissa, do make an effort to find and read The History of Sir Charles Grandison. It's only 1,600 pages and for fans 18th century lit, love and extreme romance, it's sheer bliss. (You can requisition it from a good library. ) Sir Charles Grandison is the ultimate English gentleman. He is intelligent, humane, cultivated and kind. His quandary comes when he discovers that two highly deserving women are in love with him and although he favors the English girl Harriet, the passionate Italian girl Clementina refuses to relinquish him - for at least eight hundred pages. These pages fly by however -- and if you like Pamela, you'll know what I mean. The character of Sir Charles fascinated and enraptured such wonderful authors as Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen. He was pretty much the standard by which all others were judged. You might almost say he was the parent of Mr. Knightley. The other most wonderful character in the novel is Sir Charles' naughty sister Charlotte, a witty, wilful creature who leads her suitors and husband a merry dance and even causes the later to break his harpsicord in a fit of pique.
This book, along with The History of Betsy Thoughtless (Eliza Haywood), Belinda (Maria Edgeworth) and Camilla (Frances Burney) will engage and captivate the modern reader, allowing them to fully partake in the adventurous fun of 18th century literature. Happy page turning!
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Summary: I couldn't put it down
Review: Not too many people seem aware of it, but this book was made by Masterpiece Theatre & aired in 1992. I had never read the book, but the mini-series was really wonderful and compelling. Apparently, ExxonMobile Masterpiece Theatre took some artistic license with some parts of the plot, but whatever they did, the TV version was riveting. If you can manage to find a copy of the filmed version, make sure to see it! As for the reading, I tend to agree with most reviewers...it's rather slow and tedious. Maybe seeing this classic in its film version is, in this rare case, better than reading it. But to each, his (her) own.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the Seminal Novels in English
Review: Samuel Richardson's massive 1747-8 novel, "Clarissa," is not only the longest novel I've ever read, but one of the best and most complex. Much like Richardson's first novel, "Pamela," "Clarissa" deals with the torments of a virtuous young lady abducted by a rake/libertine (in modern parlance, a rapist) who submits the heroine to a series of trials. Unlike Pamela, a lower class maiden, Clarissa is a member of an established and wealthy family. This change in social situation allows Richardson to explore a host of new issues, with the primary goal of moral didacticism remaining intact between the two. Clarissa Harlowe, the most beautiful and exemplary of her sex, is being imposed upon by her implacable family to marry one Mr. Solmes, a man of no mean fortune, but whose ethics, especially with regard to his own family, are suspect. Simultaneously, Clarissa's sister, Arabella, has just rejected a proposal from one Robert Lovelace, the heir of a nobleman, educated and refined, but known for his libertinism - his tendency and enjoyment of seducing young women and then abandoning them. Lovelace falls in love, or in lust, with Clarissa, and after he and Clarissa's brother James, heir to the Harlowe fortune, engage in a near fatal duel, Clarissa's continued correspondence with Lovelace becomes a major thorn in the side of the Harlowes' plans for Clarissa. The Harlowes continue to urge the addresses of Mr. Solmes while vilifying Lovelace - Clarissa not approving of either - and when her family's insitence becomes insupportable to Clarissa, the utterly demonic Lovelace takes advantage, whisking her away from a seemingly inevitable union with Solmes. Thus begins an absolutely terrifying journey for Clarissa through the darkness of humanity, as Lovelace plots and executes his seduction of the 'divine' Clarissa. An epistolary novel, "Clarissa" is written in the form of a series of letters spanning nine months, principally between Clarissa and her best friend and iconoclast, Anna Howe, and between Lovelace and a fellow libertine, John Belford. Richardson's 'to the moment' style of writing gives a minute account of everything that happens to the main characters almost as it happens, giving the novel a highly dramatic sense of urgency. The four major correspondents, as well as others, also give the novel a well-developed sense of perspective, as we get not only the events, but biased opinions and readings of all the other characters, making the events at times difficult to follow, but at the same time, marvelously rich and complex. Some of the most interesting facets of this novel are its interactions with the law, primarily inheritance law, the contrast between history and story, and at the forefront, the debate over gender roles in marriage. Almost of a piece with the novel's legal issues, Richardson examines the vagueries of semantics - what do words mean? How are words regarded and used differently by men and women? Richardson also confronts the way we read and interpret 'truth' - in a book composed of letters, subjectively written and read, where can we look to for 'truth'? Among the characters in the novel, by far the most captivating and challenging in "Clarissa" is the aforementioned Anna Howe. The ways she clashes with tradition and propriety throughout the novel are entertaining, and very much reminiscent of the eponymous heroine of Defoe's "Moll Flanders." An amazing and influential novel to say the least, anyone with a few weeks on their hands who is interested in the history of the novel in English should pick up and give "Clarissa" some serious attention, stat!
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Summary: Read the UNABRIDGED Clarissa!
Review: The UNABRIDGED Clarissa (Penguin ed.) is a powerful, moving eighteenth-century English masterpiece, the first great psychological novel. Its length may seem daunting and it does take at least six weeks to read, but you will be rewarded by finding yourself immersed in the minds of Clarissa and Lovelace. You will feel as though you are living in their world, facing their moral dilemmas, deciding on courses of action, predicting consequences. However, if you accidentally pick up the Sherburn ABRIDGEMENT of Clarissa, you will NOT be able to savor Richardson's famous "writing to the moment." If you doubt me, take a look at Mary Anne Doody and Florian Stuber's article, "Clarissa Censored," in the journal Modern Language Studies (1988). The abridgement is a travesty of Richardson's greatest novel.
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Summary: Long and Lovely
Review: You could lose yourself in this book. I did for months. It is truly fun and it carves itself into your mind. I can't forget it. It is long though.
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