B intercepting Pamela's first letter home to her mother Plot summary Ī plate from the 1742 deluxe edition of Richardson's Pamela or, Virtue Rewarded showing Mr. Since Ian Watt discussed it in The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding in 1957, literary critics and historians have generally agreed that Pamela played a critical role in the development of the novel in English. He revisited the theme of the rake in his Clarissa (1748), and sought to create a 'male Pamela' in Sir Charles Grandison (1753). Two years after the publication of Pamela or, Virtue Rewarded, Richardson published a sequel, Pamela in her Exalted Condition (1742). Richardson paints Pamela herself as innocent and meek to further contribute to the theme of her being short-sighted to emphasize the ideas of childhood innocence and naivety. Richardson highlights a theme of naivety, illustrated through the eyes of Pamela. The action of the novel is told through letters and journal entries from Pamela to her parents. Moreover, Pamela, despite the controversies, was able to shed light on social issues that transcended the novel for the time such as gender roles, early false-imprisonment, and class barriers present in the eighteenth century. Furthermore, Pamela was an early commentary on domestic violence and brought into question the dynamic line between male aggression and a contemporary view of love. A best-seller of its time, Pamela was widely read but was also criticised for its perceived licentiousness and disregard for class barriers.

The full title, Pamela or, Virtue Rewarded, makes plain Richardson's moral purpose. B and tries to acclimatise to her new position in upper-class society. In the novel's second part Pamela marries Mr. B eventually reforms and makes Pamela a sincere proposal of marriage. After various unsuccessful attempts at seduction, a series of sexual assaults, and an extended period of kidnapping, the rakish Mr. Pamela strives to reconcile her strong religious training with her desire for the approval of her employer in a series of letters and, later in the novel, journal entries all addressed to her impoverished parents. B, a wealthy landowner, makes unwanted and inappropriate advances towards her after the death of his mother.

Pamela tells the story of a fifteen-year-old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose employer, Mr. Considered one of the first true English novels, it serves as Richardson's version of conduct literature about marriage. Pamela or, Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel first published in 1740 by English writer Samuel Richardson.

Sketching Character by Pamela Lynne