Book of a lifetime: Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

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Portrait of Samuel Richardson, 1750, by Joseph Highmore, and an illustration from an 1800 French edition, where ‘Clarissa stands before Lovelace’, by Daniel Chodowiecki (Public domain/Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden)

No one evokes the feeling of being trapped like an 18th century author. The smallness of the city, the difficulties of transport and communication as compared to now, meant that one obsession, one place, could take over your life. They say that Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones created earthquakes on its publication in 1749 – if so, then Clarissa should have inspired a volcano. It is a novel simmering with anger.

I read much of Clarissa when I was stranded on an endless train journey between the Midlands and Brighton while in my second year at university. It was a steaming summer, the windows were stuck, the air conditioning broken. I hardly noticed. I was utterly absorbed.

It might seem a simple tale – young heiress seized by a rakish man, is imprisoned, raped and dies – but what was for many years the longest novel in the English language (coming in at a million words), it is almost unbearably gripping. The characters are so obsessed with each other that they cannot think of anything else – and they soon drag you into their warped and dangerous world.