Richardson, one of nine children, was probably born in 1689 in
Mackworth, Derbyshire, to Samuel and Elizabeth Richardson. It is unsure where in Derbyshire he was born because Richardson always concealed the location, but it has recently been discovered that Richardson probably lived in poverty as a child. {{quote box While working for Wilde, he met a rich gentleman who took an interest in Richardson's writing abilities and the two began to correspond with each other. When the gentleman died a few years later, Richardson lost a potential patron, which delayed his ability to pursue his own writing career. He decided to devote himself completely to his apprenticeship, and he worked his way up to a position as a compositor and a corrector of the shop's printing press. Over their ten years of marriage, Martha and Samuel Richardson had five sons and one daughter – three of the boys were successively named Samuel after their father, but all three died as infants. Martha died in childbirth on 23 January 1731, and their youngest son, Samuel, succumbed to illness in 1732. In 1733, Richardson married Elizabeth Leake, the daughter of printer John Leake. Samuel and Elizabeth had six children (five daughters and one son). Four of their daughters, Mary, Martha, Anne, and Sarah, reached adulthood. The work was intended to "create the perfect apprentice". This compelled Richardson to write a sequel to the novel,
Pamela in her Exalted Condition, in December 1741. By 1748, Richardson was so impressed with Collier that he accepted her as the governess to his daughters. In 1753, she wrote
An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting with the help of Sarah Fielding and possibly James Harris or Richardson, in part or in full, for instance by the abbé
Antoine François Prévost, as well as into German. The Dutch translator of
Clarissa was the distinguished Mennonite preacher, Johannes Stinstra (1708–1790), who as a champion of
Socinianism had been suspended from the ministry in 1742. This gave him sufficient leisure to translate
Clarissa, which was published in eight volumes between 1752–1755. However, Stinstra later wrote in a letter to Richardson of 24 December 1753 that the translation had been "a burden too heavy for [his] shoulders". In England there was particular emphasis on Richardson's "natural creativity" and his ability to incorporate daily life experience into the novel. Others wanted Lovelace to be reformed and for him and Clarissa to marry, but Richardson would not allow a "reformed rake" to be her husband, and was unwilling to change the ending. However, he was continually prompted by various friends and admirers to continue to write along with suggested topics. He wanted to keep the press in his family, but after the death of his four sons and a nephew, his printing press would be left in his will to his only surviving male heir, a second nephew. ==Epistolary novels==