Clara Reeve
Clara Reeve (23 January 1729 – 3 December 1807) was an English novelist best known for the Gothic novel The Old English Baron (1777). She also wrote an innovative history of prose fiction, The Progress of Romance (1785). Her first work was a transl
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Clara Reeve (23 January 1729 – 3 December 1807) was an English novelist best known for the Gothic novel The Old English Baron (1777). She also wrote an innovative history of prose fiction, The Progress of Romance (1785). Her first work was a translation from Latin, then an unusual language for a woman to learn. Reeve was born in Ipswich, one of the eight children of Reverend William Reeve, M. A., Rector of Freston and of Kirton, Suffolk, and perpetual curate of St Nicholas, Ipswich. Her mother was the daughter of William Smithies, a goldsmith and jeweller to King George I. Vice-Admiral Samuel Reeve (c. 1733–1803) was her brother. After the death of her father, she lived with her mother and sisters in Colchester. There she first became an author, publishing a translation from Latin of the historical allegory Argenis by John Barclay, under the title of The Phoenix (1772). She went on to write several novels, of which only one is remembered: The Champion of Virtue or The Old English Baron (1777). This was written in imitation of The Castle of Otranto or as a rival to it. The two have often been printed together. The first edition under the title of The Old English Baron was dedicated to the daughter of Samuel Richardson, who is said to have helped Reeve to revise and correct it.
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