(C) Clarissa

I always liked the name Clarissa, I thought it was so pretty and feminine. I had a friend in High School (still is a friend) and her name is Clarissa. No surprise I named my daughter that. As a Child/Teenager I didn't read much, so I didn't know there were any books with this name in it. As an adult, long after my Clarissa was born, I discovered that there were a few.

Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady

A novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. It is said to be the longest real novel in the English language. In short, the book is a tragic story of Clarissa whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family. I never read this book, but of course, I have seen the BBC adaptation. It was a mini series from 1991 starring Sean Bean and Saskia Wickham. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Clarissa Dalloway is the main character. The novel's story is of Clarissa's preparations for a party of which she is to be hostess. With the interior perspective of the novel, the story travels forwards and back in time and in and out of the characters' minds to construct an image of Clarissa's life and of the inter-war social structure.

I didn't even know this until I watched The Hours. Where they jump back and forth between the three main characters. Virginia Woolf (1923) who wrote Mrs. Dalloway, Laura Brown (1951) who reads Mrs. Dalloway and Clarissa Vaughan (2001) who is the embodiment of Mrs. Dalloway.