Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded is a novel by Samuel Richardson, first published in 1740. It tells in the first person the story of the virtuous lady's maid Pamela and the modest and agonized delicacy, yet determination, with which she rebuffs and reforms her aristocratic would-be seducer Mr B and is rewarded with marriage to him. Told through Pamela's probingly introspective letters and diary, Pamela is widely considered a seminal influence on the direction the novel form was to take towards psychological analysis and self-examination. A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... Samuel Richardson (August 19, 1689 - July 4, 1761) was an eighteenth century writer best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa (1748) and Sir Charles Grandison (1753). ... Events May 31 - Friedrich II comes to power in Prussia upon the death of his father, Friedrich Wilhelm I. October 20 - Maria Theresia of Austria inherits the Habsburg hereditary dominions (Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and present-day Belgium). ... Grammatical person, in linguistics, is used for the grammatical categories a language uses to describe the relationship between the speaker and the persons or things she is talking about. ... Introspection is the direct observation or rumination of ones own heart, mind and/or soul and its processes, as opposed to extrospection, the observation of things external to ones self. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul and logos = study of) is the study of behaviour, mind,[action] and thought. ...

The heroine, Pamela Andrews, is a maid whose master makes unwanted advances towards her. She rejects him until he shows his sincerity by proposing a fair marriage to her. In the second part of the novel, Pamela attempts to accommodate herself to upper-class society and to build a successful relationship with her husband.

Widely mocked at the time for its perceived licentiousness, the story inspired many parodies, including two by Henry Fielding: Shamela (1742), about Pamela's less virtuous sister, and Joseph Andrews (1742), which exposes the sexual hypocrisy in Pamela by retaining the plot but switching the sexes of the protagonists. Henry Fielding (April 22, 1707 - October 8, 1754) was a British novelist and dramatist. ... Events January 24 - Charles VII Albert becomes Holy Roman Emperor. ... Joseph Andrews is a novel by Henry Fielding, first published in 1742. ... Events January 24 - Charles VII Albert becomes Holy Roman Emperor. ...

Conduct books and the novel

When Richardson began writing Pamela, he conceived of it as a conduct book. (One could say that the eighteenth-century conduct book is the forerunner of today’s etiquette and self-help books.) But as he was writing, the series of letters turned into a story. Richardson then decided to write in a different genre, the novel. He attempted to instruct through entertainment. In fact, most novels from the middle of the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth century, following Richardson’s lead, claimed legitimacy through their ability to teach as well as to amuse. Though the term self-help can refer to any case whereby an individual or a group betters themselves economically, intellectually or emotionally, the connotations of the phrase have come to apply particularly to psychological or psychotherapeutic nostrums, often purveyed through the popular genre of the self-help book. ... A genre is any of the traditional divisions of art forms from a single field of activity into various kinds according to criteria particular to that form. ...

Epistolarity

An engraving by Francis Hayman and Hughbert Gravelot from the 1742 octavo edition of Pamela, which combined all four parts of the novel into one volume. The scene is Mr. B's interception of Pamela's first letter.

Epistolary novels, that is, novels written as a series of letters, were extremely popular during the 18th century and it was Richardson's Pamela that made them so. Richardson and other novelists of his time argued that the letter allowed the reader greater access to a character's thoughts; Richardson claimed that he was writing "to the moment," that is, that Pamela's thoughts were recorded nearly simultaneously with her actions. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (563x946, 1372 KB)An illustration from the 1742 octavo edition of Pamela, which combined both parts of the novel. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (563x946, 1372 KB)An illustration from the 1742 octavo edition of Pamela, which combined both parts of the novel. ... Events January 24 - Charles VII Albert becomes Holy Roman Emperor. ... Octavo has more than one meaning: Octavo is a bookbinding term for a sheet printed to form eight pages of a book when folded, and also a particular size of book. ... An epistolary novel is a literary technique in which a novel is composed as a series of letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. ...

In the novel, Pamela writes two kinds of letters. At the beginning of the novel, while she is deciding how long to stay on at Mr. B’s after the death of his mother, she writes letters to her parents relating her various moral dilemmas and asking for their advice. After Mr. B abducts her and imprisons her in his countryhouse, she continues to write letters to her parents, but because she is unsure whether or not her parents will ever receive them, they are to be considered both letters and a diary.

In Pamela, the reader receives only the thoughts and letters of Pamela, restricting the reader’s access to the other characters; we see only Pamela's perception of them. In Richardson's other novels, Clarissa (1748) and Sir Charles Grandison (1753), the reader is privy to the letters of several characters and can thus more effectively evaluate the motivations and moral values of the characters. This article needs to be wikified. ... Events April 24 - A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle with the intent to conclude the struggle known as the War of Austrian Succession - at October 18 - The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is signed to end the war Adam Smith begins to deliver public lectures in Edinburgh Building of... 1753 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

While Richardson did not invent the name Pamela the novel did help to popularize the name in English-speaking countries.

Criticism

• Armstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Doody, Margaret Anne. A Natural Passion: A Study of the Novels of Samuel Richardson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.
• McKeon, Michael. The Origins of the English Novel: 1600-1740. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
• Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957.