'Clarissa' update
Well, remarkably, I'm within 200 pages of finishing the book. I'm actually quite glad I decided to read the full version rather than an edited-for-length one - if I'd done the latter, I think I would have felt that I'd cheated. It really hasn't been at all a painful experience to read a book of this length (except in the physical sense that holding the thing upright for any length of time is a strain!).

A few meditations, cut for possible spoilers...

Much of the last several hundred pages are devoted to Clarissa's physical decline, death, and the repentence of her family. It's never made clear what, exactly, causes Clarissa's fatal illness - at one point she's described as dying from grief, but that surely isn't entirely plausible. There are a couple of hints that she might have been pregant - in two letters she is asked outright if she is pregant, and she avoids answering the question. Richardson couldn't have her overtly willing herself to death (to do so would be un-Christian), but it's very clear that she welcomes death, indeed encourages it. Consumption? Deliberate starvation? Such suggestions have been made, but don't entirely convince. I suppose ultimately we just have to accept that Clarissa does, indeed, die from grief.

Although a part of me got annoyed with Clarissa's death-wish, it seems fairly clear from reading the text that - after the rape - her position in society is a difficult one. Although rape was at the time a capital offence, it's clear that many of the characters do not treat the crime with a great deal of seriousness. Even her dearest friend, Anna Howe, urges Clarissa to marry Lovelace. If she refuses to marry him, it seems her only options are either to go abroad, where she can no longer disgrace her family, or die.