Clara Reeve

Abstract

The subject of the following thesis is the work of Clara Reeve, a novelist whose fame has hitherto rested, and probably always will rest, upon a "Gothic tale" modelled on Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto. This story ran into many editions, while the other works of the authoress have to a great extent fallen into oblivion; and although The Old English Baron has been mentioned by many historians of the Romantic Revival(l)and used as an illustration of the Influence exerted by The Castle of Otranto, no interest has as yet been taken in determining the position of this writer on the merits of her work as a whole. The following pages have been written with three aims in view. The first aim is to examine more in detail than has hitherto been attempted the whole body of Clara Reeve's contribution to the English novel; for, in addition to the widely-known Old English Baron she wrote four novels, of which two are domestic, one historical, and one romantic and pastoral; and she compiled a short critical history of fiction. Reference will also be made to her poems, which have biographical interest, and to her translation of Barclay's Argenis, produced some years before The Old English Baron. The second aim is to set forth an opinion formed as the result of the investigation of her work. Study of her writings as a whole has shown that to associate her exclusively with the writers of the "Gothio" novel is to misunderstand her temperament and tastes. Her view of literature and her outlook on life show that she is also to be linked with those who maintained the traditions of the Augustans until late in the century. All her writings reveal a conservative spirit towards the new ideas which were interesting and inspiring to many of her contemporaries, and she is one of those who took part in the early phases of the Romantic Revival rather to restrain and modify its tendencies than with a view to spreading its literary tenets. She is also to be associated with those whose sense of social responsibility infused a strongly didactic character into their work. The third aim is to illustrate by means of Clara Reeve's work(the product of a long life of devotion to literature)some of the features of an obscure period in the history of the novel: the years which elapsed between the close of Smollett's career, and the accession to fame of Mrs Anne Radcliffe. During these years, although no great novelist arose, interesting developments may be discerned in the work of the minor writers. By investigation of their work we are enabled to trace more dearly the evolution of the novel during the eighteenth century.