Clara Reeve
English writer, novelist, translator (1729-1807)
Clara Reeve (23 January 1729 – 3 December 1807) was an English novelist best known for the Gothic novel The Old English Baron (1778). She also wrote an innovative history of prose fiction, The Progress of Romance (1785). Her first work was a translation from Latin, at the time a language unusual for a woman to learn. She was a near-contemporary of the bluestockings ladies of Elizabeth Montague's circle.
Biography
Early life
Clara Reeve was born in Ipswich, one of the eight children of Reverend William Reeve MA, Rector of Freston and of Kirton, Suffolk, and perpetual curate of St Nicholas, Ipswich. Her mother Hannah was the daughter of William Smithies, a goldsmith and jeweller to King George I. Vice-Admiral Samuel Reeve (c. 1733–1803) was her brother.
Reeve described her father and her early life in a letter to a friend: My father was an old Whig; from him I have learned all that I know; he was my oracle; he used to make me read the Parliamentary debates, while he smoked his pipe after supper. I gaped and yawned over them at the time, but, unawares to myself, they fixed my principles once and for all. He made me read Rapin's History of England; the information it gave made amends for its dryness.
“Clara Reeve” enters the record as english writer, novelist, translator (1729-1807). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Clara, Reeve and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q449489. VIAF identifies the subject as 17228530. The Library of Congress control number is n83008362. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1729, 1807, 1778 and 1785.
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This entry incorporates text from “Clara Reeve” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.