Richardson's life
Samuel Richardson was born in Derbyshire in 1689 of a lower middle-class family.
He become a skilful printer and at the age of 32 he opened his own business and became very popular in England.
His career as a novelist started by accident when he was 50.
Two booksellers asked him to write a sequence of letters for people who were not familiar whit correspondence, the matter is everyday subjects.
So he had the opportunity to know women psychology.
He was exited by the situation and decided to make a novel with his letters.
His first work is "Pamela" in 1740.
The epistolary novel is in four volumes, it is concerned about the situation of a young girl who had to defend her self from her master's advances when she was working as a maid.
Pamela can be considered the first best-seller in English literature because of his great success.
The second novel of Richardson is Clarissa, a women who leaves her family because she doesn't want to marry the man they have chosen for her.
She died alone.
The last novel is Sir Charles Grandison, who is noble, handsome, rich.
He finds difficult to decide whom to marry, at the end chooses a beautiful girl who is becoming the pray of a bad man.
The novels are all in epistolary form.
They gave Richardson great fame in all over Europe so he is considered the father of the best-seller.
Richardson died in London in 1761.