The Imprisonment. Soon after that,  BBC 4 Open Book in which Mariella Frostrup interviewed the director of Clarissa, Marilyn Imrie, about the dramatisation.     The libertine in Clarissa  by Samuel Richardson ( epistolary novel published in1748 so  earlier than the French Liaisons) , is Robert Lovelace. His stubborness at seducing good -hearted,  innocent Clarissa