Elizabeth, Lady Echlin (née Bellingham; c. 1704 – 1782) was an English writer, best known for her correspondence with Samuel Richardson, and for writing an alternative and less shocking ending to his novel Clarissa.
[1][5] Echlin wrote an alternative ending to Richardson's Clarissa because she felt that his tale "serve[d] only to agitate good minds" and was "horribly shocking to humanity".
[6] Her sister, Lady Bradshaigh, had previously written an alternative ending in which "the rape fails, Clarissa recovers to lead a single life, and Lovelace, wounded by James, becomes 'a cripple, & a sincere penitent'".
[6] Echlin described her ending as "a jumble of ill-connected thoughts … badly told",[1] and she did not send it to Richardson until six years after the final instalment of the novel had appeared.
[1] It was not published until 1982, in a text edited by Dimiter Daphinoff in the series Schweizer anglistische Arbeiten (Swiss English Studies Works) (Francke Verlag: ISBN 9783772015496).