NOTES TO POSTSCRIPT
p. 368, 1. 31—p. 369, 1. 10:
This passage is part of Richardson's new material for his revised Postscript. What he wrote in this paragraph, however, was not reproduced completely or accurately in either the third or the fourth editions, in each of which it appears in different but equally incorrect versions. W.M. Sale has offered a convincing explanation of how the mistakes in printing came about, and suggests that the passage should read as follows:
She was very early happy in the conversation-visits of her learned and worthy Dr. Lewen, and in her correspondencies, not with him only, but with other Divines mentioned in her last Will. Her Mother was, upon the whole, a good woman, who did credit to her birth and her fortune; and was able to instruct her in her early youth: Her Father was not a free-living, or free-principled man; and both delighted in her for those improvements and attainments, which gave her, and them in her, a distinction that caused it to be said, that when she was out of the family, it was considered but as a common family.
[Samuel Richardson: a bibliographical Record of his Literary Career (New Haven, 1936), 59-61].
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The Preface to the first edition is reproduced from a copy at the Huntington Library, the Postscript to the fourth edition of Clarissa from a copy in the Rare Books Room of the Library of the University of North Carolina. Hints of Prefaces for Clarissa is a transcript of a manuscript in the Forster Collection (Vol. XV, ff 49-58) in the Victoria and Albert Museum. (Single underlinings have been rendered in italics, double underlinings in boldface.) Thanks is extended to these institutions for their kind permission for the reproduction of this material.
