Samuel Richardson
To' know one's Richardson ' must have been a distinction more easily granted to his contemporaries, fed on tales of Arcady and Arabia and delighted by the novelty of stories of ordinary men and women, than to modern readers appalled by the prolixity of the ' father of the English novel'. Seven volumes covering only eleven months, as in ' Clarissa', are not easily tackled, but a study of Richardson who as a delineator of female character is still almost unsurpassed will provide much interest and amusement.
In this programme the chief events of Richardson's not-very-eventful life are recorded, his talent examined, and a series of dramatised extracts given from ' The History of Sir Charles Grandison ', his last novel.