ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on epistolary space that have elements in common with cyberspace; and as being modelled on an ideal version of the new urban space of London that Clarissa encounters soon after she has escaped from her family at Harlowe Place. It demonstrates that just as in the letters of Dorothy Osborne and George Etherege, a part of what drives Clarissa to write so many letters is a desire to stay in touch, through the special venue provided by epistolary space, with what is going on in London. The chapter describes the state of almost perpetual written communication within which Clarissa and many other of the characters in Clarissa attempt to live. It argues—as poststructuralist and other critics never do—that the destination of both Clarissa and Clarissa offers a solution to these breakdowns in experience of the shared communities of meaning of London and of epistolary space.
