Pious Frauds: ‘Honest Tricks’ and the Patterns of Anglican Devotional Thought in Richardson

Abstract

This essay identifies a series of apparent deceptions by two of Richardson's iconic moral paragons, Clarissa Harlowe and Sir Charles Grandison. It uses early modern Anglican thought to argue that such deceptions are best seen as 'lies' -but also that the same body of theology allows for 'lying' in certain cases. Drawing on a range of Anglican thought from this period, it identifies in this literature a fascination with using 'indirect means' to bring about the ends of virtue, and concludes that Richardson picks up on this intellectual thread in his staging of morally complex fictional scenarios.