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1Getting of Wisdom

By Henry Handel Richardson

The Getting of Wisdom tells the story of Laura Rambotham, a 12-year-old girl who is just starting at her boarding school. This is based on Henry Handel Richardson's experiences of her own school, the Presbyterian Ladies College in central Melbourne. The story goes through her friends and enemies and all the life of a boarding school in early 20th century Australia, and all the subjects and learning too. Laura learns a lot but her education does not satisfy her, and her social life is thrown upon her as very different from her peers. (Summary by Bronwyn Kate)

2Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

By Samuel Richardson

"Now first published in order to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes.<br>A Narrative which has its Foundation in Truth and Nature; and at the same time that it agreeably entertains, by a Variety of curious and affecting Incidents, is intirely divested of all those Images, which, in too many Pieces calculated for Amusement only, tend to inflame the Minds they should instruct."(From the frontispiece of the first edition)<br>Pamela tells the story of a 14 year old lady's maid named Pamela whose master, Mr. B., makes unwanted advances towards her. She rejects him continually. In Pamela's letters to her "poor but exemplary parents" the story unfolds and we learn her fate. (summary by Annise)

3Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 1

By Samuel Richardson

Clarissa Harlowe, the tragic heroine of Clarissa, is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become very wealthy only in recent years and is now eager to become part of the aristocracy by acquiring estates and titles through advantageous pairings. Clarissa's relatives attempt to force her to marry a rich but heartless man (Roger Solmes) against her will and, more importantly, against her own sense of virtue. Desperate to remain free, she is tricked by a young gentleman of her acquaintance, Lovelace, into escaping with him. However, she refuses to marry him, longing — unusual for a girl in her time — to live by herself in peace. (Summary by Wikipedia)

4Australia Felix

By Henry Handel Richardson

The story of Richard Mahony, a doctor trained in Edinburgh who comes to Ballarat in the gold rush of the 1850s. At first he runs a shop but later he marries and returns to medical practice. His story is interwoven with that of his wife's brothers and sister. Even after his medical practice becomes successful he is still unhappy living in the colony and decides to return home to Britain. Richard is a restless irritable man whose character is said to be based on the author's own father. This book is the first of the trilogy 'The Fortunes of Richard Mahony', but stands well on its own. The other two books of the trilogy are still protected by copyright in the USA, but may be found on Project Gutenberg Australia. (Summary by tabithat)

5Pointed Roofs

By Dorothy Richardson

Miriam Henderson is one of what novelist Dolf Wyllarde (in her great work, <i>The Pathway of the Pioneer</i>) termed "nous autres," i.e., young gentlewomen who must venture forth and earn their living after their fathers have been financially ruined. Also, she has read Villette; she thus applies for and is offered a job teaching conversational English at a girls' school, albeit in Germany rather than France. <i>Pointed Roofs</i> describes her year abroad, as she endeavors to make her way in the hotbed of seething female personalities that populate the school, overseen by her employer, the formidable Fraulein. <br/><br/> Richardson is adroit at conveying nuances of human perception through acutely observed physical and emotional detail. She was unfortunately labeled the inventor of stream of consciousness, and her later novels suffered when she started believing her own press; but her early ones (the first half-dozen are pre-1923) are free from stylistic excess, and are poignant -- or in this case -- pointed explorations of the workings of the human mind. (Introduction by Grant Hurlock)

6Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant

By Ulysses S. Grant and James D. Richardson

<i>The Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents</i> is an eleven-volume series of tomes comprising of proclamations, special messages, and inaugurations from several presidents throughout United States history. This work is from Volume seven part one: Ulysses S. Grant, March 4, 1869 to March 4, 1877 (Introduction by Jim Clevenger)<br><br> <b>Prooflistening was provided by Barry Eads, denisedee, Sandra Cullum, and Linette Geisel.

7Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal

By Sarah J. Richardson

Life in the Grey Nunnery was first published in Boston, in 1857 by Edward P. Hood, who was credited as the book's editor. It is likely that this account is by Sarah J. Richardson "as told to" Edward Hood, though it may in fact be completely fictional. It is clearly an anti-Catholic book, an example of the genre of fiction referred to as "the convent horror story." <br><br>As this summary shows, it is not known if this book is fictional or a true account.(Summary by project Gutenberg and Elaine Webb)

8Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 2

By Samuel Richardson

Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is the longest real novel in the English language. (Summary by Wikipedia)

9Getting of Wisdom (Version 2)

By Henry Handel Richardson

Henry Handel Richardson was the pseudonym of Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, a writer who was born in 1870 to a reasonably well-off family which later fell on hard times. The author's family lived in various Victorian towns and from the age of 13 to 17 Richardson attended boarding school at the Presbyterian Ladies' College in Melbourne, Victoria. It's this experience that feeds directly into The Getting of Wisdom. Laura Tweedle Rambotham, the main character, is the eldest child of a country family. She is a clever and highly imaginative child, given to inventing romantic stories for the entertainment of her younger siblings, and an avid reader. She is also both proud and sensitive and her mother finds her difficult to handle. Her mother is the widow of a barrister who supports her family in genteel poverty on her earnings from embroidery. At the age of twelve Laura is sent off to boarding school in Melbourne. Her experiences at school shock and humiliate the unworldly Laura. The girls at the school are generally from rather wealthy families and those, like Laura, who come from less fortunate backgrounds learn very early not to divulge their circumstances for fear of ridicule. From time to time Laura lets little snippets of information about her family slip out, and she suffers for it. (Summary by Wikipedia)

10Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 3

By Samuel Richardson

Clarissa Harlowe, is the tragic heroine of this story, she is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become wealthy only recently and now desires to become part of the aristocracy. Originally they planned to concentrate the wealth and lands of the Harlowe's into the possession of James Harlowe, Clarissa's brother whose wealth and political power will lead to his being given a title. Clarissa's grandfather has left her a substantial piece of property upon his death, and a new route to the nobility opens through Clarissa marrying Robert Lovelace, heir to an earldom. James's response is to provoke a duel with Lovelace, who is seen thereafter as the family's enemy. James also proposes that Clarissa marry Roger Solmes, who is willing to trade properties with James to concentrate James's holdings and speed his becoming Lord Harlowe. The family agrees and attempts to force Clarissa to marry Solmes, whom she finds physically disgusting as well as boorish. The story continues to twist and turn through a series of letters written between two women, two men and a variety of other characters which continues throughout the 9 volumes of the book. (Summary by Michele Eaton)

11Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage Vol. 1 (version 2)

By Dorothy Richardson

"Pointed Roofs" is the first volume of "Pilgrimage," a series of thirteen autobiographical novels by Dorothy Richardson considered to have pioneered the "stream of consciousness" technique of writing. In a review of Pointed Roofs (The Egoist April 1918), May Sinclair first applied the term "stream of consciousness" in her discussion of Richardson's stylistic innovations. Richardson, however, preferred the term "interior monologue." Miriam Henderson, the central character in Pilgrimage, is based on the author's own life between 1891 and 1915. Richardson also important as a feminist writer because of the way her work assumes the validity and importance of female experiences as a subject for literature. Her wariness of the conventions of language, her bending of the normal rules of punctuation, sentence length, and so on, are used to create a feminine prose, which Richardson saw as necessary for the expression of female experience. Virginia Woolf in 1923 noted that Richardson "has invented, or, if she has not invented, developed and applied to her own uses, a sentence which we might call the psychological sentence of the feminine gender." ( Wikipedia [edited by Expatriate])

12Secret Service

By Albert Richardson

Albert Richardson was a reporter for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune when he volunteered to hazard an undercover journey through the American south, reporting incognito on the growing secession crisis in that region. With the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, he attached himself to the Union armies as a war correspondent, sending dispatches from the fields of battle for the next two years. Then, in May 1863, while attempting to pass a Confederate battery outside Vicksburg, Richardson found himself thrown from a burning barge into the Mississippi River, swimming for his life with a squad of Union soldiers and several other reporters. Captured as a prisoner, he was at first confident that as a civilian newspaperman he would be quickly exchanged. Instead, he was to spend the next 18 months in various prisoner of war camps. Seizing at last an opportunity for escape, he set out to cross the snowy Appalachians in the dead of winter, heading for Union lines in Tennessee, assisted by a secret network of slaves, Unionists, and bushwhackers. Albert Richardson’s own personal memoir of his wartime adventures, published in 1865, offers readers a rousing historical narrative presented with a journalist’s eye for detail. (Summary by Maria Kasper)

13Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 4

By Samuel Richardson

Volume 4 continues the story in epistolary form of the despoliation of Clarissa, as all the forces of society and the personal nefariousness of the devilish rake Lovelace conspire to overcome her virtue. One of the earliest and certainly the longest novel in the English language, with a wide-ranging influence not only on the English novel, but also on nineteenth century European literature at large, it is gripping, twisted and a magnificent dramatic soap opera. - Summary by Nicole Lee

14Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded Volume 2

By Samuel Richardson

Pamela, tells the story of a 15-year old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose country landowner master, Mr. B, makes unwanted advances towards her after the death of his mother. He abducts her, locks her up in one of his estates, and attempts to seduce and rape her. She rejects him but starts to realise that she is falling in love with him. She then attempts to build a relationship with him and to fit in with upper class society. This is a continuation of <a href="https://librivox.org/pamela-by-samuel-richardson/">"Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded"</a>. (Michele Eaton)

15Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 5

By Samuel Richardson

Volume 5 continues the story in epistolary form of the despoliation of Clarissa, as all the forces of society and the personal nefariousness of the devilish rake Lovelace conspire to overcome her virtue. One of the earliest and certainly the longest novel in the English language, with a wide-ranging influence not only on the English novel, but also on nineteenth century European literature at large, it is gripping, twisted and a magnificent dramatic soap opera. - Summary by Nicole Lee

"Backwater" is the second volume of "Pilgrimage," a series of thirteen autobiographical novels by Dorothy Richardson considered to have pioneered the "stream of consciousness" technique of writing. In a review of the first volume in the series, "Pointed Roofs" (The Egoist April 1918), May Sinclair first applied the term "stream of consciousness" in her discussion of Richardson's stylistic innovations. Richardson, however, preferred the term "interior monologue." Miriam Henderson, the central character in Pilgrimage, is based on the author's own life between 1891 and 1915. Richardson is also important as a feminist writer because of the way her work assumes the validity and importance of female experiences as a subject for literature. Her wariness of the conventions of language, her bending of the normal rules of punctuation, sentence length, and so on, are used to create a feminine prose, which Richardson saw as necessary for the expression of female experience. Virginia Woolf in 1923 noted that Richardson "has invented, or, if she has not invented, developed and applied to her own uses, a sentence which we might call the psychological sentence of the feminine gender." In "Backwater," the quietly iconoclastic Miriam Richardson undertakes teaching responsibilities at a girls' school in North London; finding it to be impossible to conform to socially-acceptable interpretations of life, she anguishes over such issues as marriage, religion, the nature of happiness, and family relationships, while she begins to widen her horizons in the world. ( Wikipedia, edited by Expatriate)

17Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 6

By Samuel Richardson

It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, It is generally regarded as Richardson's masterpiece. This is Volume six out of a series of nine Volumes. <br><br>Letter 6 read by TriciaG, wib66, Timothy Ferguson and Adonis. ( Michele Eaton )

18Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 7

By Samuel Richardson

In Volume 7, the degradation and humiliation of Clarissa continue, from all the forces of society and the personal nefariousness of the devilish rake Lovelace, while her moral greatness and superiority to Lovelace shine out with an undiminished splendour. One of the earliest and certainly the longest novel in the English language, with a wide-ranging influence not only on the English novel, but also on nineteenth century European literature at large, it is gripping, twisted and a magnificent dramatic soap opera. - Summary by Nicole Lee

19Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 8

By Samuel Richardson

In Volume 8 Clarissa continues to decline towards her pitiful end, while Lovelace remains defiant, even as his nemesis Colonel Morden finally arrives his town. One of the earliest and certainly the longest novel in the English language, with a wide-ranging influence not only on the English novel, but also on nineteenth century European literature at large, it is gripping, twisted and a magnificent dramatic soap opera. - Summary by Nicole Lee

20Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 9

By Samuel Richardson

In Volume 9 Clarissa hastens to her fate and the various culprits reap the consequences of their crimes of indifference, cruelty and neglect. One of the earliest and certainly the longest novel in the English language, with a wide-ranging influence not only on the English novel, but also on nineteenth century European literature at large, it is gripping, twisted and a magnificent dramatic soap opera. - Summary by Nicole Lee

The beautiful and witty Harriet Byron writes to her family about her new acquaintances in London, including the odious Sir Hargrave Pollexfen who attempts to carry her off against her will. Harriet and her rescuer, the titular hero, fall in love, but he is already engaged to another woman. The text is no longer available at https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/r/richardson/samuel/grandison/complete.html - Summary by Neala