Clarissa by Samual Richardson. Series made in the early 90’s I think. Not sure that it ever really became popular but it has always remained my favourite.
Richardson first presents the heroine, Clarissa Harlowe, when she is discovering the barely masked motives of her family, who want to force her into a loveless marriage to improve its fortunes. When Lovelace, a romantic who holds the code of the Harlowes in contempt, offers her protection, she runs off with him. She is physically attracted by, if not actually in love with, Lovelace, but she is to discover that he wants her only on his own terms and she refuses to marry him. In Lovelace’s letters to his friend Belford, Richardson shows that what is driving [Lovelace] to conquest and finally to rape is really revenge for her family’s insults and his sense of Clarissa’s moral superiority. For Clarissa, however, accepting marriage as a convenience is no better than accepting the opportunistic moral code of her family. As the novel comes to its long-drawn-out close, she is removed from the world of both the Harlowes and the Lovelaces, and she dies true to herself to the end.
