SAMUEL RICHARDSON (p.

270)

Life and works. Samuel Richardson was born in 1689 in Derbyshire into a lower middle-class family. When he was quite young
started working as a printer in London. At the age of 51, a er becoming one of London’s most reputable and prosperous
printers, he became a novelist and in 1740 published Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded an epistolary novel about a young servant
girl who is persecuted by her master, a young nobleman. Despite its success, the book caused a great debate in England about
the way it represented the rela onships between the di erent social classes. In 1747 he published a second epistolary novel,
called Clarissa. In his old age Richardson was revered as a great novelist and a public gure. He died in London in 1761.

Richardson’s revolu on. Richardson is remembered as the rst writer to drama ze le er-wri ng. In fact his epistolary novels
combine the urgency and direct speech of drama with an accurate and detailed descrip on of people, places and objects. For
making his le ers lively and intensely drama c, as if they were really "wri en to the moment", he uses many devices. For
example, a typical le er opens with Pamela, who for fear of Mr. B, hides the le er she was wri ng and pretends to embroider.
Such is the drama c power of Richardson's novels that le ers in them seem to have a life of their own: they are interrupted,
hidden, lost, found, stolen, given back and counterfeited.

Richardson’s historical importance. Richardson's historical importance is twofold. Firstly, he re ected the rise to power of the
new mercan le Protestant middle class in his novels, and in this respect, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded is exemplary, because in
the novel, the virtue that is rewarded is that of a middle-class girl who doesn’t accept her noble master's love, un l he
marries her. Instead, from a literary and historical perspec ve, Pamela an cipates the period of the French Revolu on and of
Roman cism. Secondly, Richardson’s work represents the birth of the sen mental novel, and more speci cally, he introduced
the theme of the persecuted virgin, which would be taken up by the Gothic novel (second half of the 18th century) and
survive well into the later phases of Roman cism and even into modern c on and lm.

PAMELA, OR VIRTUE REWARDED (p.272)

The rst English bestseller. Pamela was Samuel Richardson's rst work of c on and represents the rst English bestseller. It
is an epistolary novel, in witch, most of the le ers are wri en by Pamela Andrews, a young servant girl, to her parents. Its
publica on was the subject of discussion, public debates and le ers wri en to journals, so much so that the country was
divided into "Pamelists" and "an -Pamelists". Imita ons, sequels and parodies led Richardson to write his own sequel to the
novel, in 1741. The book was immediately popular in all Europe where it was soon translated into all the major languages and
turned into a play (in Italy, Carlo Goldoni wrote two comedies based on Richardson's novel: Pamela nubile and Pamela
maritata).

The debate on ‘virtue rewarded’. The reason for such widespread yet contrasted success was implicit in the theme of the
novel: to may readers Pamela was an heroine and hers was the triumph of virtue or “virtue rewarded”, in fact she was a poor
15-year-old girl dares to resist her master's improper sexual advances, and does so with a sense of the moral value of her
resistance; in the end she makes the young nobleman marry her on her own terms: he must aocept to lead a sober, Chris an
married life. However, for some reading public, Pamela wasn’t so much a virtuous girl as a cra y young lady, who tried to
climb the social ladder becoming a nobleman's wife.

The triumph of the middle class. Quite aside from the moral ques on, Pamela was felt by many to be a socially dangerous
book, because she encouraged servant maids to oppose their masters' wishes. In fact, Pamela, put forward the values of a
middle class that prided itself on its rec tude and morality as opposed to the freer lifestyle of the nobles. When Pamela says
"my soul is of equal importance with the soul of a princess" she is not just making an obvious Chris an statement, but also
strongly sta ng her right to be respected quite apart from her social status. The romance celebrate the union of England's
two most powerful classes: the aristocracy and the middle class. And, in real history as in the novel, it was the new middle
class that forced the aristocracy into acceptance of their ideals and way of life.

The rst psychological novel. To make Pamela the rst psychological novel is the ambiguity, iden ed both in the presence of
sexual violence in all of Richardson's novels, and in the lack of clarity of the feelings of the heroines about their persecutors.
Richardson treated the study of the characters' feelings and their inner mo va ons with the innova ve epistolary technique.
The le ers are in fact full of incidents, and the dialogues are mostly in direct speech. This highlights Richardson's idea of
le er-wiring, which was that the characters write their thoughts and feelings immediately a er an incident has occurred or an
event taken place.
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