Barbauld’s Richardson and the Canonization of Personal Character

Abstract

Barbauld"s Richardson and the Canonisation of Personal Character On 4 September 1804, Richard Lovell Edgeworth wrote to Anna Letitia Barbauld to acquaint her with the attention that her recent edition of The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson (1804) had received in the Edgeworth household: We have read the greatest part of Richardson"s Life and Correspondence. Your criticisms are excellent, and your censures of the indecent passages in your author are highly becoming and highly useful.. .. You have made R[ichardson] appear to great advantage, without using any of the unfaithful arts of an editor. You have shewn, that like other mortals, he had failings; but his enthusiasm for virtue, his generosity, and true politeness of heart and conduct, are brought so distinctly before the eye, that we love the man as much as we admire the author. 1 Loving "the man" and admiring "the author" here appear as complementary responses in the Edgeworth family"s reading experience, a complementarity that is reflected in Richard Edgeworth"s views on Barbauld"s literary and biographical criticisms. In Edgeworth"s reading of the "Life and Correspondence," the author and his novels merge, as do Barbauld"s evaluations of