French aristocrat known for his sometimes acerbic Maximes, which he revised and added to until the end of his life.

See Grantham, Thomas Robinson, Baron.

Mary Robinson was a novelist, poet, actress, and notable personality in British fashionable society. Married at fifteen after her father became insolvent in a whaling venture, Mary lived a fashionable life in London until the gambling and financial incompetence of her husband Thomas Robinson forced them into exile in Wales. Soon after, the Robinsons arranged publication of Mary's Poems (1775) as a means of raising money to satisfy creditors. Nevertheless, Thomas Robinson was arrested for debt and Mary and her infant daughter joined him for ten months in King's Bench Prison.

A French lawyer and persuasive public speaker who rose to power during the French Revolution, Robespierre was the primary force responsible for the bloody Reign of Terror and the guillotining of tens of thousands. Robespierre himself lost his life to the guillotine in July 1794.

A long-standing business associate and friend to Samuel Richardson, Rivington founded one of the most important family bookselling concerns of the late eighteenth century. Among other significant works, his firm published the first volume of Pamela (1740-1).

English antiquary, supporter of the French Revolution, and vegetarian activist. Ritson challenged editors of early English poetry, firmly believing in maintaining textual accuracy in the editing of early texts. As a publisher of children's songs, verses, and fairy stories, Ritson is best remembered for his Robin Hood: A Collection of All the Ancient Poems, Songs and Ballads Now Extant Relative to That Outlaw.

Author of a number of tracts on the Moravians, Rimius translated Stinstra's A Pastoral Letter against Fanaticism into English.

James Ridley is remembered mainly for his Tales of the Genii, published in 1764 under the pen name Sir Charles Morell.

Samuel Richardson's daughter with his wife Elizabeth. She married Richard Crowther.

Richardson is known as the inventor of the epistolary novel, which he developed while working on a collection of model letters, Letters Written to and for Particular Friends, on the Most Important Occasions, better known as Familiar Letters (1741). His three most famous works are all named after the sentimental heroes or heroines whose stories they relate. Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded (1740-1) tells of a virtuous servant who holds out against her employer's immodest advances until ultimately he rewards her with marriage.