Samuel Richardson

Richardson, Samuel (1689–1761), English novelist, best known for his novels in epistolary form, especially Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740–41), the story of a servant girl's moral triumph over her lecherous master, and Clarissa Harlowe (1747–48), his tragic masterpiece, also on the theme of seduction. The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753–54) portrays a virtuous hero, in contrast to the amoral hero of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones.