# Clarissa — Character guide

> Key figures in Clarissa by Samuel Richardson.

- [Clarissa Harlowe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/clarissa_harlowe.md): Clarissa is the admired daughter of a wealthy family who expect her obedience in marriage, and her refusal to comply turns affection into siege. Her virtue, eloquence, and self-command are genuine, but so is her pride in
- [Robert Lovelace](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/robert_lovelace.md): Lovelace moves through the world as a man of quality and spirit, openly averse to marriage and skilled at making others perform for him — as when he drills the hired Captain Tomlinson through a fake reconciliation before
- [Anna Howe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/anna_howe.md): Anna is the friend Clarissa writes to when the family closes ranks, and the one whose house becomes a quiet site of forbidden visits. She is witty, impatient with hypocrisy, and bold enough to say what Clarissa only hint
- [John Belford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/john_belford.md): Belford begins as Lovelace's audience and accomplice in letters, a man of the same set and the same appetites. But as Clarissa's suffering becomes undeniable, he turns into her advocate — visiting her lodgings, negotiati
- [James Harlowe Jr.](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/james_harlowe_junior.md): James is the son and heir who cannot bear being outshone, and his grudge against Lovelace becomes a grudge against the sister who once drew his rival's attention. He leads the charge at her return, accusing her of disobe
- [Arabella Harlowe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/arabella_harlowe.md): Arabella is the sister who should be first in the marriage market and is not, and she never lets Clarissa forget it. She receives her with 'solemn and stiff form,' sides with James against her, and later, at the reading 
- [Mr. Solmes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mr_solmes.md): Solmes is the rich, unattractive man the Harlowe family—especially Clarissa's brother and sister—insist she must marry for money and alliance, despite her open loathing. His awkward, grasping presence and the family's co
- [Mr. Hickman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mr_hickman.md): Hickman is the long-suffering admirer of Anna Howe, tolerated rather than embraced, a decent man whose very constancy invites her scorn. Anna confesses she has not shown him Lovelace's letter, fearing that any favour wou
- [Mrs. Harlowe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_harlowe.md): Mrs. Harlowe once defended Clarissa, saying no fortune could make Solmes worthy of her, yet she has been 'brought over' to the family's coercive plan. In her letter to Mrs. Norton she admits she must 'sail with the tide,
- [Mr. John Harlowe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mr_john_harlowe.md): John Harlowe is one of the two uncles present at the cold, formal reception that greets Clarissa on her return from Miss Howe's, where the family's displeasure is staged as a tribunal. Though less harsh than his brother 
- [Antony Harlowe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/antony_harlowe.md): Antony Harlowe is one of the uncles who sits in judgment at Clarissa's grim homecoming, his harshness matching the family's determination to bend her will. Where his brother John is merely weak, Antony is actively mercen
- [Colonel Morden](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/colonel_morden.md): Colonel Morden is the one Harlowe relative who truly loves Clarissa, a man of honour whose generosity—even to Miss Dolly Hervey—marks him as the family's moral exception. Anna Howe laments that he did not arrive in time 
- [Mrs. Norton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_norton.md): Mrs. Norton raised Clarissa and remains the family's conscience, a woman whose 'virtuous prudence' everyone acknowledges even as they resent her partiality to the fallen favorite. When Mrs. Harlowe writes to her, it is t
- [Dorcas Wykes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/dorcas_wykes.md): Lovelace installs Dorcas as Clarissa's maid precisely because she is illiterate, a kinswoman of Mrs. Sinclair who can be trusted to see everything and report it. She is neat, modest-seeming, and 'not to be corrupted' — w
- [Mrs. Sinclair](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_sinclair.md): Mrs. Sinclair presents herself as a genteel landlady with nieces and lodgings, and Clarissa accepts her hospitality on that footing. Behind the facade she runs a house of women who read, entertain, and ensnare, and she w
- [Sally Martin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/sally_martin.md): Sally Martin is a fixture of the London house, part of the company that surrounds Clarissa with false cheer and false alarms. She is quick to calculate consequences — she reasons coolly about what a man who has committed
- [Polly Horton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/polly_horton.md): Polly Horton belongs to the small circle of women who keep Mrs. Sinclair's house running and who watch Clarissa with a mixture of curiosity and self-interest. She is the one who argues that a woman with such a handle aga
- [Lady Betty Lawrance](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/lady_betty_lawrance.md): Lady Betty Lawrance never appears in person, but her identity is one of Lovelace's most useful props: he impersonates her, or has her impersonated, to convince Clarissa that a respectable female relative is waiting to re
- [Lady Sarah Sadleir](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/lady_sarah_sadleir.md): Lady Sarah Sadleir belongs to the Sadleir branch of Lovelace's family, one of the respectable female relations whose approval he invokes whenever he needs to make his intentions toward Clarissa look honorable. She never 
- [Lord M.](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/lord_m.md): Lord M. is the head of the Lovelace family and the source of the fortune and standing that let his nephew move through the world as a gentleman of leisure and appetite. He dotes on Lovelace with a fondness that shades in
- [Miss Charlotte Montague](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/miss_charlotte_montague.md): Charlotte Montague moves in the same genteel circle as the Harlowe family and is repeatedly invoked by Lovelace as a witness to his respectability — the kind of cousin a man produces when he wants a woman to believe his 
- [Miss Patty Montague](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/miss_patty_montague.md): Patty Montague, sometimes called Martha, belongs to the same Montague household as Charlotte and shares her reputation for virtue. Lovelace invokes both cousins together when he wants Clarissa to believe that his family 
- [Mrs. Lovick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_lovick.md): Mrs. Lovick keeps the lodging house where Clarissa spends her last days, and she becomes one of the small circle of women — with Mrs. Smith and the nurse — who surround her at the end. She is not a schemer and not a sain
- [Mrs. Smith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_smith.md): Mrs. Smith runs the household where Clarissa lodges in her final illness, and she becomes one of the small group of women who attend her deathbed with genuine sorrow. In the scene Belford describes, she kneels at the foo
- [Captain Tomlinson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/captain_tomlinson.md): Tomlinson arrives at Mrs. Moore's parlor as Lovelace's trusted ally, a solemn gentleman who speaks warmly of the Harlowe family and coolly of Lovelace's defiance, winning the women's sympathy with every well-timed stroke
- [Joseph Leman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/joseph_leman.md): Joseph Leman moves through the Harlowe house as a trusted servant while quietly passing intelligence to Lovelace, convinced of his own shrewdness and blind to how completely he is being used. Clarissa sees through him, n
- [Betty Barnes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/betty_barnes.md): Betty Barnes knows every corner of Clarissa's apartment and closet, and is the servant chosen to rifle through them when the family decides to hunt for evidence against her. She is forbidden to mention Clarissa's letters
- [Hannah Burton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/hannah_burton.md): Hannah Burton serves Clarissa closely enough to be trusted with her letters and her confidence, and is turned out of the household for it. Her dismissal is one of the early signs that Clarissa's punishment will extend to
- [Will](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/will.md): A servant who assists Lovelace's plots.
- [Mrs. Moore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_moore.md): A widow who shelters Clarissa after her escape.
- [Miss Rawlins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/miss_rawlins.md): A young lady at Mrs. Moore's boarding house.
- [Thomas Belton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/thomas_belton.md): A dissolute friend of Lovelace who dies repentant.
- [Richard Mowbray](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/richard_mowbray.md): A brutal friend of Lovelace.
- [James Tourville](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/james_tourville.md): A prating friend of Lovelace.
- [Mrs. Howe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_howe.md): Anna Howe's mother.
- [Dolly Hervey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/dolly_hervey.md): A young cousin of the Harlowes.
- [Mrs. Judith Norton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_judith_norton.md): Clarissa's former nurse and faithful correspondent.
- [Dr. Lewen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/dr_lewen.md): A clergyman who tries to counsel Clarissa.
- [Mr. Brand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mr_brand.md): A pedantic clergyman who writes against Clarissa.
- [Mrs. Bevis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_bevis.md): A widow who assists Clarissa.
- [Mrs. Townsend](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_townsend.md): A woman who helps Clarissa in her escape.
- [Miss Partington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/miss_partington.md): A flippant young lady at Mrs. Moore's.
- [Mr. Wyerley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mr_wyerley.md): A former suitor of Clarissa.
- [Mrs. Greme](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_greme.md): A housekeeper at Lord M.'s estate.
- [Mr. Goddard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mr_goddard.md): An apothecary who attends Clarissa.
- [Simon Collins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/simon_collins.md): A servant of the Harlowe family.
- [Mrs. Sorlings](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_sorlings.md): A widow who shelters Clarissa in Hampstead.
- [Mr. Doleman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mr_doleman.md): An acquaintance of Lovelace who provides lodging.
- [Mrs. Hodges](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/mrs_hodges.md): A housekeeper at Harlowe Place.
- [Sir Harry Downeton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters/sir_harry_downeton.md): A baronet and acquaintance of Lovelace.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/clarissa_se/characters