Pamela. Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel by English writer Samuel Richardson, a novel which was first published in 1740.
It tells the story of a 16-year-old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose employer, Mr. B, a wealthy landowner, makes unwanted and inappropriate advances towards her after the death of his mother. Pamela strives to reconcile her strong religious training with her desire for the approval of her employer in a series of letters and, later, journal entries, addressed to her impoverished parents.
After various unsuccessful attempts at seduction, a series of sexual assaults, and an extended period of kidnapping, the rakish Mr. B eventually reforms and makes Pamela a sincere proposal of marriage. In the novel's second part, Pamela marries Mr. B and tries to acclimatize to her new position in upper-class society.
The full title, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, makes plain Richardson's moral purpose. A best-seller of its time, Pamela was widely read but was also criticized for its perceived licentiousness and disregard for class barriers.
Two years later, Richardson published a sequel, Pamela in her Exalted Condition. He revisited the theme of the rake in his Clarissa, and sought to create a male Pamela in Sir Charles Grandison. Since Ian Watt discussed it in The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding in 1957, literary critics and histor
It tells the story of a 16-year-old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose employer, Mr. B, a wealthy landowner, makes unwanted and inappropriate advances towards her after the death of his mother. Pamela strives to reconcile her strong religious training with her desire for the approval of her employer in a series of letters and, later, journal entries, addressed to her impoverished parents.
After various unsuccessful attempts at seduction, a series of sexual assaults, and an extended period of kidnapping, the rakish Mr. B eventually reforms and makes Pamela a sincere proposal of marriage. In the novel's second part, Pamela marries Mr. B and tries to acclimatize to her new position in upper-class society.
The full title, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, makes plain Richardson's moral purpose. A best-seller of its time, Pamela was widely read but was also criticized for its perceived licentiousness and disregard for class barriers.
Two years later, Richardson published a sequel, Pamela in her Exalted Condition. He revisited the theme of the rake in his Clarissa, and sought to create a male Pamela in Sir Charles Grandison. Since Ian Watt discussed it in The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding in 1957, literary critics and histor
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