Is Clarissa the longest novel?

Richardson’s Pamela has historical rather than fictional significance in the history of English fiction, as it is taken as the first English novel in the English language. But Richardson's second work Clarissa Harlowe, published in 1748, however, is more important for its fictional quality rather than for its historical position in English novel writing. 

Clarissa Harlowe is, perhaps, the longest novel in English, with eight volumes. Its very bulk possibly prevents its popularity, and this is scarcely read at present. Yet, it remains, by any standard, a very great novel. This is definitely Richardson's masterpiece. 

The central theme of the novel is much the same as that of Pamela. This is the representation of the unrelenting viciousness of masculinity to spoil conscious female virtue. But the novel is patterned on a tragic plan. It has a tragic end, as opposed to the happy end of Pamela. But by this means Richardson here has raised his theme to a much higher level. 

The heroine of the novel, Clarissa Harlowe, like Pamela, is the centre of attraction. She is drawn as beautiful, graceful, obedient, accomplished and full of filial obligation and virtuous conduct. In fact, she a lady of dignity and culture, belonging to the upper middle class English society of the 18th century. Richardson really represents in her an ambitious model of an ideal woman of his age. 

In Clarissa Harlowe, Richardson, however, is concerned with the tragedy of life that human folly and wickedness bring about. Lovelace, Clarissa’s seductive lover, is a kind of Don Juan, a handsome fellow, with his low morality and rakish conduct. Clarissa has no liking for Lovelace, but her strong aversion to the attempt of her family to force her into an odious marriage leads her to elope with Lovelace. Out of sheer wickedness, the man seduces her, and conducts her to a brothel. He delays the marriage, though promising always to marry her, and ultimately rapes her in a drugged state. Clarissa feels wounded, sternly refuses to marry him, despite all entreaties, and ultimately dies, while the libertine Lovelace is killed in a duel by one of her kinsmen. 

This is the tragic theme of Clarissa Harlowe. Here virtue is not rewarded. Richardson glaringly exhibits in the novel the lack of poetic justice in the human world. His moral note is struck in what Clarissa’s friend writes that her only crime is her merit. In fact, she is persecuted and driven to her tragic end by her family and by the man who loves her wildly, and not wisely. 

Like the earlier novel Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe is told entirely in letters. The letters here, often of an enormous length, are written between Clarissa and her family, Lovelace and his friends and others. Richardson’s_ psychological introspection and analysis are commendable and affirm the quality of his work as a classical novel in the English language.