25. Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson

This took a long time to read, but I was engrossed all the way through.  It's in nine volumes, and written entirely as letters between the tragic and virtuous heroine, Clarissa Harlowe, and her best friend, Miss Anne Howe, on the one hand; and the libertine seducer, Richard Lovelace, and his best friend, Mr Belford, on the other - plus a few letters from minor characters where necessary.

A story told in letters was apparently an innovation for the time.  I thought initially that it would have a happy ending, with Richard reforming and marrying Clarissa; but she refuses to marry him after he drugs and rapes her, and dies piously.  Richardson has an afterword justifying this, saying that in real life the good often suffer, and their reward is in heaven.

Through the letters I had a strong sense of the main protagonists as real, fleshed out people each with weaknesses and strengths.  The moral seemed to me to be that one small error (in Clarissa's case, believing that through corresponding with Lovelace she could prevent harm coming to her family) can have disastrous consequences.  Mind you, Clarissa was really up against the odds, between Lovelace's devious plots and the persistent hostility of her brother and sister which poisoned her whole family against her.

24. Pamela, by Samuel Richardson

Pamela, and Clarissa (by the same author, see #25) came bundled together on my Kindle, and I read Clarissa first.

Pamela was published in 1742 and Clarissa in 1749.

23. Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus by various authors

I wasn't able to find this, but I did find Volume 2 of Miscellanies which is a collection of essays and stories by the same authors:  Jonathan Swift, John Arbuthnot, Alexander Pope and John Gay.  It includes A Modest Proposal (see #21).  The text has been poorly edited after scanning but is legible.

I enjoyed some of the essays more than I expected to, particularly "A letter to a young clergyman lately entered into holy orders" which has some excellent advice on public speaking; and "A letter to a young lady, on her marriage" about behaving modestly, cultivating her mind and choosing her company carefully.

22. Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding

I've read the next few books in the wrong order - blame "1001 Books"!  Joseph Andrews, published in 1742,  is a sequel to Shamela (published in 1741) which was a parody of Pamela by Samuel Richardson (see #24), published in 1740.  Kindle gave me Joseph Andrews and Shamela bundled together.

In Joseph Andrews, a virtuous young man resists the lusty advances of an older woman and has various trials and adventures as a result, accompanied by his friend Parson Abraham Adams.

Shamela, which is not on the '1001 books' list, presents Pamela as a hussy scheming to trap her employer into marriage, instead of the virtuous innocent portrayed in Pamela.