Clara Reeve

Clara Reeve (23 January 1729 – 3 December 1807) was an English novelist best known for the Gothic novel The Old English Baron (1777).[1] She also wrote an innovative history of prose fiction, The Progress of Romance (1785). Her first work was a translation from Latin, then an unusual language for a woman to learn.

Clara Reeve
Born23 January 1729
Ipswich, England
DiedDecember 3, 1807(1807-12-03) (aged 78)
Ipswich, England
OccupationWriter
GenreFiction
Notable worksThe Old English Baron

Biography

Early life

Reeve was born in Ipswich, one of the eight children of Reverend William Reeve, M. A., Rector of Freston and of Kirton, Suffolk, and perpetual curate of St Nicholas, Ipswich.[2] Her mother was the daughter of William Smithies, a goldsmith and jeweller to King George I. Vice-Admiral Samuel Reeve (c. 1733–1803) was her brother.

In a letter to a friend, Reeve said of her father and her early life:

My father was an old Whig; from him I have learned all that I know; he was my oracle; he used to make me read the Parliamentary debates, while he smoked his pipe after supper. I gaped and yawned over them at the time, but, unawares to myself, they fixed my principles once and for all. He made me read Rapin's History of England; the information it gave made amends for its dryness. I read Cato's Letters by Trenchard and Gordon; I read the Greek and Roman histories, and Plutarch's Lives: all these at an age when few people of either sex can read their names.[3]

Career

After the death of her father in 1755, Reeve lived for a time with her mother and sisters in Colchester, then moved into her own house in Ipswich.[4] There her first authorship was a translation from Latin of the historical allegory Argenis by John Barclay, entitled The Phoenix (1772).[3] She was saddened by its reception, later writing, "It was the best book I ever gave to the public, and the worst received."[5]

Reeve published at least 24 volumes over 33 years.[4] They included five novels, of which only The Champion of Virtue or The Old English Baron (1777) is well known. This was written in imitation or as a rival of The Castle of Otranto. The two have often been printed together. The first edition, entitled The Old English Baron, was dedicated to the daughter of Samuel Richardson, who is said to have helped Reeve to revise and correct it.[6] It became a noticeable influence on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Reeve also wrote an epistolary novel, The School for Widows (1791). followed by Plans of Education (1792), which focuses on issues of female education.[7]

Her innovative history of prose fiction, The Progress of Romance (1785), can be seen as a precursor to modern histories of the novel. It specifically upholds the tradition of female literary history heralded by Elizabeth Rowe (1674–1737) and Susannah Dobson (died 1795). One story in the work, "The History of Charoba, Queen of Egypt", inspired Walter Savage Landor's first major piece, Gebir.

Reeve seems to have managed her publishing career personally, rather than relying on male relations to deal with publishers on her behalf.[4]

Death

Reeve led a retiring life, leaving little biographical material. She died in Ipswich and was buried, as she wished, in the churchyard of St Stephen's, next to her friend the Reverend Derby.[6]

Influence

Written in response to Walpole's Castle of Otranto, The Old English Baron was a major influence on the development of Gothic fiction, gaining popularity for the genre in universities and among general readers. A contextual introduction that looks at Reeve in the context of late 18th-century women's writing and the history of the Gothic can be found in this book.[8] Henrietta Mosse was to use this story as a model for her own novel, The Old Irish Baronet in 1808.[9]

Although Reeve's The Progress of Romance, was long overlooked by scholars, Garry Kelly has called it "not only a pioneering history and defense of "romance" from antiquity to the mid-eighteenth century but also a ground- breaking work of literary scholarship by a woman".[4]

Works
  • The Phoenix (1772), an abridged translation of John Barclay's Argenis
  • The Champion of Virtue (1777), republished as The Old English Baron (1778)
  • The Two Mentors: A Modern Story (1783)
  • The School for Widows: A Novel (1785)
  • The Progress of Romance (1785)
  • The Exiles, or, Memoirs of the Count de Cronstadt (1788)
  • Plans of Education (1792)
  • The Memoirs of Sir Roger de Clarendon (1793)
  • Destination, or, Memoirs of a Private Family (1799)
  • Edwin, King of Northumberland: A Story of the Seventh Century (1802)
gollark: A populated one.
gollark: I leave and go to a populated area.
gollark: I do second aid.
gollark: I do first aid again.
gollark: First aid, I *guess*.

See also

References
  1. Gary Kelly, "Reeve, Clara (1729–1807)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: OUP. Retrieved 24 January 2015.
  2. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  3. Scott (1870) p. 545.
  4. Kelly, Gary (2002). "Clara Reeve, Provincial Bluestocking: From the Old Whigs to the Modern Liberal State". Huntington Library Quarterly. 65:1-2: 105-125 (pp. 105-107) – via JSTOR.
  5. Walker, Alice (1926). Clara Reeve. Master's Thesis, University of London. p. 248.
  6. Scott (1870) p. 546.
  7. Folger Collective on Early Women Critics (Scholarly group) (1999). Women critics 1660-1820: an anthology. NetLibrary, Inc. p. 134. ISBN 0-585-00061-1. OCLC 1053005899.
  8. The Old English Baron. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. 15 August 2008. ISBN 9780199549740.
  9. "Mosse [née Rouviere], Henrietta (d. 1834), novelist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-45857. Retrieved 8 August 2020.

Bibliography

Further reading
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