ABSTRACT
To be sure, the model John Norris and Mary Astell provide for an epistolary relationship would have held particular interest for Richardson. Samuel Richardson's appeal to Norris in the letter to Carter may suggest, on the one hand, a deliberate rhetorical strategy. Richardson, as Carol Houlihan Flynn has shown, did not lose his considerable epistolary abilities when he turned from fiction to personal correspondence. Richardson's letter to Carter similarly works to elicit a particular response, in the case, both approbation and forgiveness. It seems highly unlikely that Richardson would drop a name without being cognizant of its probable effect, especially in a letter with ameliorative intentions. If Clarissa and Astell seem to protest too much, this is because everything is riding on their being right–without a God, both Richardson's tragedy-turned-comedy and Astell's argument on behalf of women collapse utterly.
