Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 47 — Reeve, Clara

Elizabeth Lee

1896

Exported from Wikisource on September 6, 2024

REEVE, CLARA (1729–1807), novelist, born at Ipswich in 1729, was eldest daughter of William Reeve, rector of Freston and of Kerton, Suffolk, and perpetual curate of St. Nicholas, Ipswich. The family had long been resident at Ipswich, where Clara's grandfather, Thomas Reeve, was rector of St. Mary Stoke. Her mother was a daughter of William Smithies, goldsmith and jeweller to George I. There were eight children of the marriage. One of the sons, Samuel Reeve, attained the rank of vice-admiral of the white. Another, Thomas Reeve, was rector of Brockley, Suffolk, and master of Bungay grammar school (cf. Gent. Mag. 1830, ii. 474; Christian Remembrancer, i. 19). Miss Reeve tells us that her father was an old-fashioned whig, and that she learned from him all she knew. He made her read at a very early age the parliamentary debates, Rapin's ‘History of England,’ Cato's ‘Letters,’ Greek and Roman history, and Plutarch. After his death, on 13 Sept. 1755 (Gent. Mag. s.a. p. 429), the widow, with Clara and two other daughters, went to live at Colchester, where Clara first attempted authorship with a translation from the Latin of Barclay's romance of ‘Argenis,’ published in 1772 under the title of ‘The Phœnix.’ In 1777 she produced her most famous work, ‘The Champion of Virtue, a Gothic Story,’ the copyright of which she sold to Mr. Dilly for 10l. A second edition appeared in 1778, and that and all subsequent editions bore the title ‘The Old English Baron.’ Miss Reeve was the intimate of Samuel Richardson the novelist's daughter, Mrs. Brigden, who corrected and revised the work. The second edition was dedicated to Mrs. Brigden.

Miss Reeve's other writings are of little importance. ‘The Progress of Romance,’ published in 1785, gives an account of the sort of fiction read at that time. Miss Seward criticised it somewhat severely (cf. Gent. Mag. 1786, i. 15, 16). ‘The Exiles, or Memoirs of Count de Cronstadt,’ which was published in 1788, in three volumes, and in 1789 in two, was largely borrowed from a novel by M. D'Arnaud; it has a satirical dedication to Peter-Pertinax Puff, esq., in which Miss Reeve mentions a dramatic piece sent to a manager who took no notice of it. A preface follows, where reference is made to a ghost story, ‘Castle Connor, an Irish Story,’ sent to London from Ipswich in May 1787, but lost in the transit.

Miss Reeve led a quiet and retired life, and died at Ipswich on 3 Dec. 1807, at the age of 78. She was buried in the churchyard of St. Stephen's in that town.

Miss Reeve's fame as a novelist rests entirely on ‘The Old English Baron.’ It was very popular at the time of its publication, and between 1778 and 1886 it has been thirteen times reprinted. It was, as the author herself avows, ‘the literary offspring of Walpole's “Castle of Otranto,”’ a romance that introduced the supernatural into a tale dealing with ordinary life. ‘The Old English Baron,’ while exemplifying the influence of Walpole's so-called Gothic revival, doubtless suggested in its turn to Mrs. Radcliffe the style of romance which is associated with her name. Walpole denounced the book as insipid and tedious, describing it as Otranto ‘reduced to reason and probability.’ ‘It is so probable,’ he added, ‘that any trial for murder at the Old Bailey would make a more interesting story … this is a caput mortuum’ (WALPOLE, Letters, ed. Cunningham, vii. 51; cf. pp. 111 and 319). Hazlitt characterised ‘Otranto’ and ‘The Old English Baron’ alike as ‘dismal treatises.’ Repeated perusals of it, however, gave Miss Seward ‘unsated pleasure’ (Gent. Mag. 1786, i. 15, 16). Scott, in his ‘Memoir’ for Ballantyne's ‘Novelists' Library’ (1823), denied Clara Reeve a rich or powerful imagination, and found her dialogue ‘sometimes tame and tedious, not to say mean and tiresome,’ though he deemed it in the main sensible, easy, and agreeable.

A portrait of Miss Reeve, drawn by A. H. Tourrier, and etched by Dammam, appears in the 1883 edition of ‘The Old English Baron.’ Another portrait appears in ‘La Belle Assemblée’ (1824, pt. ii.). The memoir in the edition of 1883 is an unacknowledged transcript of Scott's with a few paragraphs omitted.

Other works by Miss Reeve are:

1. ‘Poems,’ 1769.

2. ‘The Two Mentors: a Modern Story,’ 2 vols. 1783.

3. ‘The School for Widows: a novel,’ 3 vols. 1791.

4. ‘Plans of Education, with Remarks on the Systems of other Writers,’ 1792.

5. ‘The Memoirs of Sir Roger de Clarendon, a natural son of Edward the Black Prince; with Anecdotes of many other eminent persons of the 14th century,’ 3 vols. 1793.

Some of these were translated into French. The British Museum ‘Catalogue’ mentions ‘Fatherless Fanny,’ 1819; ‘Kathleen, or the Secret Marriage,’ 1842; and ‘The Harvest Home,’ as by Miss Reeve, but that she was their author is open to doubt. In the first the last paragraph of the preface is word for word that of ‘The Old English Baron.’ Davy also attributes to her ‘Destination, or Memoirs of a Private Family,’ 1799, 12mo (Athenæ Suffolcenses).

[Allibone's Dict. ii. 1762; Davy's Pedigrees of Suffolk Families (Addit. MS. 19146, ff. 225–8); Dunlop's Hist. of Fiction, 1845, p. 414; Gent. Mag. 1807, ii. 1233.]

E. L.

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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 47 — Reeve, Clara

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