Samuel Richardson's Pamela is the first English novel

Samuel Richardson's Pamela is the first English novel

Contents

INTRODUCTION………………………………………

CHAPTER I. WRITER’S LIFE

1.1 Life and works of Samuel Richardson……………..
1.2 Richardson’s contribution to the development of
the novel in English…………………………………….
CHAPTER II. PAMELA
2.1 Main characters and plot………………………….
2.2 Literary significance and criticism………………..

CONCLUSION………………………………………

Bibliography………………………………………….
Glossary………………………………………………

INTRODUCTION

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded evolved from a collection of model letters into a bestselling novel. Margaret Doody introduces Samuel Richardson's work and its exploration of gender, class, sexual harassment and marriage.

Samuel Richardson, a printer for much of his life, had not intended to be a novelist. He agreed with booksellers to write a book of lightly fictionalised model letters, offering examples of a suitable letter in various circumstances, such as requests for a loan, or condolences. He produced a sample letter from a girl suffering from the sexual attentions of her employer, followed by the father’s reply. Coming up with this exchange sparked his imagination. Richardson set the ‘letter-writer’ aside and began to write what became one of the world’s most influential best sellers: Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded.
Letters Written to and for Particular Friends by Samuel Richardson, 1741
Printed title page from Letters Written to and for Particular Friends by Samuel Richardson
While working on his letter-writing manual, Samuel Richardson was inspired to write his epistolary novel, Pamela.
Usage terms Public Domain
Pamela, who is aged 15 when her story begins, has been employed by a middle-aged lady as a maidservant and companion. The novel begins with the lady’s death. Pamela’s real sorrow mingles realistically with her anxieties about getting another job. The lady’s adult son Mr. B assures this daughter of a poor family that she need not worry, but eventually she finds cause for concern in his attentions. Pamela Andrews must free herself and find another situation.
According to convention, Mr. B should pass the maidservant on to his sister, Lady Davers. But he seems little inclined to this solution. Sometimes he speaks to Pamela in the lofty manner of a social superior, as her ‘master’. He is, as we say, ‘the boss’. At times he speaks very differently. When Mr. B makes advances to her in the summerhouse, Pamela can no longer doubt his sexual intention. Their dialogue reflects their social background, familial influences, various cultural influences such as their different reading, and their temperaments. This young country squire, an important local landowner, is trying to mimic the aristocratic manners of a class just above his own – but his show of grand masculinity often collapses into uncertainty or colloquial pettiness. Pamela, in attempting to communicate her resistance effectively, appeals to the serious religious rhetoric in which she believes. Her statements are seasoned by comic observations, impetuous bluntness – and by an anger inappropriate to her class. Servants are not supposed to be bold or rude. Her language is demotic, of the people. As an epistolary novel (i.e. one told through letters), we come to know these characters directly: we hear their voices as we endeavour to decode their rhetoric and the folds of their minds.