Clara Reeve

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:

1785The Progress of Romance.

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:

1.	1778  Horace Walpole to William Cole, 22 August 1778; Letters, ed. Cunningham (1906) 7:111.
2.	1786  Anna Seward to Miss Scott, 29 March 1786; Letters, ed. Scott (1811) 1:135-36.
3.	1791  Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger, in The Female Geniad; a Poem ... written at the Age of Thirteen (1791) 38.
4.	1792  Clara Reeve, "An Account of Clara Reeve" 1792; The Monthly Magazine 24 (January 1808) 601.
5.	1815  William Henry Ireland, in Scribbleomania (1815) 134-35.
6.	1824  Anonymous, "Miss Clara Reeve" La Belle Assemblee NS 30 (July 1824) 1-2.
7.	1855  Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman's Record; or, Sketches of all Distinguished Women (1852; 1855) 486-87.
8.	1869  John Forster, in Landor, a Biography (1869) 47-48.
9.	1899  Henry A. Beers, in English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century (1899) 249.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Clara Reeve:

1.	1788  Anonymous, in Catalogue of five hundred Celebrated Authors (1788).
2.	1798  David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798) 2:188-89.
3.	1807  Anonymous, Obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 77 (Supplement, 1807) 1233.
4.	1808  Samuel Egerton Brydges, Obituary in Censura Literaria 6 (1808) 432.
5.	1824  Walter Scott, "Clara Reeve" 1824; Scott, Miscellaneous Prose Works (1829) 3:241-49.
6.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 2:180-81.

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.