Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript

cond Publication',[28] and several sections in it are printed (either in full or in a condensed form) only in the revised Postscript. Hints of Prefaces therefore cannot be a discarded draft of the Preface and Postscript to the first edition. The final volumes of this first edition came out in December 1748, and Tom Jones was published in the following February. A letter from Skelton, dated June 10th, 1749,[29] which mentions an 'inclosed Paper' on Clarissa, indicates that his essay did not reach Richardson until after this date; and in the letter to Graham, from which I have already quoted, we find him in the May of 1750 still seeking assistance in the preparation of his Preface.

Apart from such evidence it is obvious that one section of Hints of Prefaces is directed specifically at Fielding. In pages [12] and [13] of the manuscript Richardson seems to be answering, consciously and in sequence, arguments brought forward in the Preface to Joseph Andrews; the