Clara Reeve was the eldest daughter of Thomas Reeve, a clergyman of old whig principles who she describes as her mentor; one of her brothers became a vice-admiral and another a schoolmaster. After the death of her father in 1755 Reeve settled in Colchester with her mother; she died at Ipswich at an advanced age. Reeve was a noted student of romances ancient and modern, and one of the founders of gothic fiction; her Old English Baron was often reprinted and translated into French and German. Walter Scott composed an admiring memoir of her for Ballantyne's Novelists.
TEXT RECORDS:
PUBLICATIONS:
Original poems on several occasions. 1769.
The Phoenix [Barclay's Argenis, trans.] 1772.
The champion of virtue: a gothic story [later, Old English Baron]. 1777.
The two mentors: a modern story. 1783.
The progress of romance. 2 vols, 1785.
The exiles: or memoirs of the Count de Cronstadt. 1788.
The school for widows, a novel. 3 vols, 1791.
Plans for education; with remarks on the systems of other writers. 1792.
Memoirs of Sir Roger de Clarendon. 1793.
Destination, or memoirs of a private family. 1799.
Fatherless Fanny. 1819.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
privately educated
woman writer
novelist
poet
translator
Elizabeth Cobbold
Samuel Jackson Pratt
Joseph Cooper Walker
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; DLB.
Anna Seward, "Remarks against Clara Reeve's Opinion of Richardson" Gentleman's Magazine 56 (January 1786) 15-17; Clara Reeve, response to Anna Seward, Gentleman's Magazine 56 (February 1786) 117-18; "Reeve on Richardson" Gentleman's Magazine 56 (April 1786) 288-89; Catalogue of five hundred Celebrated Authors (1788); David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 77 (Supplement, 1807) 1233; Annual Register for 1807 (1807) 590; "Account of Mrs. Clara Reeve" Monthly Magazine 24 (January 1808) 600-01; obituary in Literary Panorama 3 (March 1808) 1371; Walter Scott, Ballantyne's Novelist's Library (1821-24); "Biographical Memoir of the late Miss Clara Reeve" La Belle Assemblee NS 30 (July 1824) 1-2 [portrait]; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman's Record (1855); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Valentine, British Establishment (1970); Butt, OHEL (1979); Todd, Dictionary of ... Women Writers 1660-1800 (1987); Lonsdale, Eighteenth-Century Women Poets (1989).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Clara Reeve:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Clara Reeve:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
1. | 1781 Samuel Jackson Pratt: Clara Reeve, "To the Unknown Author of a Poem, called Sympathy" Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser (2 July 1781). |
2. | 1785 Samuel Jackson Pratt: Clara Reeve, "To the Author of Sympathy" in Pratt, Miscellanies (1785) 1:ix-x. |
3. | 1792 Clara Reeve: Clara Reeve, "An Account of Clara Reeve" 1792; The Monthly Magazine 24 (January 1808) 601. |