Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded Study Guide

Samuel Richardson may have based his first novel on the story of a real-life affair
between Hannah Sturges, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a coachman, and Sir Arthur Hesilrige,
Baronet of Northampton, whom she married in 1725. He certainly based the form of the novel on
his own aptitude for letter-writing: always prolific in private correspondence, he had recently
tried his hand at writing fictionalized letters for publication, during which effort he had
conceived the idea of a series of related letters all tending to the revelation of one story. He
began work on Pamela on November 10, 1739 and completed it on January 10, 1740.
Richardson’s objects in writing Pamela were moral instruction and commercial
success, perhaps in that order. As he explained to his friend Aaron Hill in a famous letter, his
goal was to divert young readers from vapid romances by creating “a new Species of Writing
that might possibly turn young People into a Course of Reading different from the Pomp and
Parade of Romance-writing, and dismissing the improbable and marvellous, with which Novels
generally abound, might tend to promote the Cause of Religion and Virtue.” The nature of this
“new species of writing” may seem obscure at first. Richardson felt that the best vehicle for a
moral lesson was an exemplary character; he also felt that the most effective presentation of an
exemplary character was a realistic presentation that evoked the reader’s sympathy and
identification, as opposed to an ideal one that rendered the character as inhumanly perfect. For
the project of rendering an exemplary character in a realistic manner the appropriate form, he
reasoned, was the novel, providing as it did ample scope in which to flesh out psychological
complexities and mix dominant virtues with smaller but significant flaws. In itself, Richardson’s
idea of combining instruction with entertainment was, of course, hardly original; then as now, it
was a highly traditional argument for the moral utility of art. Richardson’s innovation was a
generic one consisting, in part, of his producing a respectable and morally elevating work in the
despised genre of the novel, hitherto the province of only the cheapest diversions.
Pamela achieved extraordinary popularity among three groups whose tastes do not
often coincide: the public, the litterateurs, and the professional moralists. It went through five
editions in its first year and inspired a market for Pamela-themed memorabilia, which took
such forms as paintings, playing cards, and ladies’ fans. Pre-publication hype doubtless
encouraged sales, as the novel’s backers secured and publicized endorsements by such major
literary figures as Alexander Pope, and there is some indication that Richardson, with his many
connections in the London literary world, may have incentivized some of this “buzz” under the
table. The novel had a legitimate claim to its wide audience, however: in addition to its moral
utility, there was the aesthetic achievement of Richardson’s narrative method, quite avant-garde
at the time. The epistolary form presented Pamela’s first-person jottings directly to the reader,
dispensing with the imperious traditional narrator and allowing unmediated access to her
personality and perceptions. The intimacy and realism of this method, which Richardson called
“writing to the moment,” combined with the liveliness of Pamela’s language and character,
proved highly attractive.
Not all were won over, however, and part of what makes the publication
of Pamela such a phenomenon in English literary history is the controversy that greeted it and
the legion of detractors and parodists it inspired. A Danish observer went so far as to say that
England seemed divided into “two different parties, Pamelists and Antipamelists. . . Some look
on this young Virgin as an Example for Ladies to follow. . . Others, on the contrary, discover in
it the Behaviour of an hypocritical, crafty Girl . . . who understands the Art of bringing a Man to
her Lure.” Some critics, then, accused Pamela of being less innocent than she puts on to be and
of simulating sexual virtue in order to make herself more desirable. In Henry
Fielding’s Shamela, for instance, the “heroine” boasts: “I thought once of making a little
fortune by my [physical] Person. I now intend to make a great one by my Vartue.” Fielding’s
savagely funny send-up was one of many parodies of Richardson’s novel (Eliza
Haywood’s Anti-Pamela is another notable contribution); it burlesques not only the moral
pretensions of Richardson’s heroine but also her vulgar tongue and her penchants for recording
voluminous detail and writing in real time. (For instance, Shamela happens to have her pen by
her and goes on scribbling during one of her Master’s rape attempts.)
Richardson was sensitive to the criticism and ridicule, and it influenced his many
revisions of the novel. In particular, in subsequent editions of the novel he elevates Pamela’s
style of writing and speaking, progressively eliminating rusticisms, regionalisms, and other
markers of her lower-class status. These changes were in response to a widespread critique that
held that a young woman of admirable character should speak in a way that commands
admiration; as one of Richardson’s correspondents put it, “The Language is not altogether
unexceptionable, but in several Places sinks below the Idea we are constrained to form of the
Heroine who writes it.” Other casualties of Richardson’s gradual accommodation of literary and
social decorum include Pamela’s “saucy” reactions to her superiors, both in dialogue and in her
private thoughts. The result is that by the time Richardson was finished tinkering with his
explosive first novel, it had become a smoother, more polished, and often less challenging text.
(Note: These extensive revisions mean that modern editors of Pamela have many
options when choosing a text on which to base their editions. They tend to prefer one of two
versions, either the original version of 1740 or the posthumous version of 1801. This study guide
refers to the Oxford World Classics edition, which is based on the 1740 text. Readers using the
current Penguin volume or other modern editions based on the 1801 text will confront
inconsistencies and may become confused.)

Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded Summary

Pamela Andrews is a lively, clever, pretty, and virtuous servant-girl, age 15, in the
county of Bedfordshire in England. For the past three years, she has served as waiting-maid to
the kindly Lady B., who unfortunately has just died. Lady B.’s son, the twenty-something Squire
B., becomes Master of the country household. After a period of mourning in which he
decorously restrains himself from making any advances on his late mother’s favorite, Mr. B.
begins flirting with Pamela incessantly. In letters to her parents, who are destitute through no
fault of their own, Pamela reports her Master’s attempts and vows that she will suffer any injury
or social penalty rather than sacrifice her chastity. Her parents encourage this devotion to her
virtue and advise her to leave Mr. B.’s employment and return to home and poverty if ever Mr.
B. makes a physical attempt on her.
The attempt comes, sooner rather than later, and Pamela resists it vigorously.
Disconcerted but only temporarily deterred, Mr. B. tries to bribe Pamela to keep quiet about the
incident; she relates it, however, to her parents and to the motherly housekeeper, Mrs. Jervis.
Mr. B. begins to make noise about Pamela’s gossiping about him in her letters home, prompting
Pamela to suspect him of stealing her mail. Further offenses ensue, including an incident in
which Mr. B., hiding in a closet, spies on Pamela as she undresses at night and then rushes out to
have his way with her. Pamela, however, displays a marked tendency to fall into a swoon
whenever her Master approaches her with lewd intentions, and this peculiarity has the convenient
effect of diminishing the Squire’s libido.
In spite of Mr. B.’s continued harassment, Pamela does not manage to make the departure
that she so frequently threatens. Various impediments, among them her obligation to finish
embroidering one of Mr. B.’s waistcoats, prevent her return to her parents. Finally, she resolves
to go and, having resisted a final effort of Mr. B. to tempt her with money for her parents and
marriage to a clergyman, packs her bags to leave. Unfortunately, her driver is the coachman from
Mr. B.’s estate in Lincolnshire, and her destination turns out not to be the one she intended.

Mr. B., who has intercepted and read all of the correspondence between Pamela and her
parents, writes to Mr. and Mrs. Andrews with a consoling but phony explanation for her failing
to appear in their village as planned. Mr. Andrews sees through the ruse and approaches the
Bedfordshire estate, bewailing the disappearance of his daughter, but to no avail. Meanwhile,
Pamela has arrived in Lincolnshire, where the crude and malignant housekeeper Mrs.
Jewkes watches her every move.
Pamela continues writing letters while in captivity, but as she does not know when she
will be able to send them, she dispenses with salutations and signatures, so that they run together
into one continuous journal. She begins plotting her escape immediately, and she soon settles on
the clergyman Mr. Williams as her only likely ally. Mr. Williams does indeed turn out to be a
willing helper, though his competence remains in question. They arrange a system of secret
correspondence whereby they will hide their notes to each other beside a sunflower in the
garden.
Mr. Williams tries and fails to enlist support for Pamela among the local gentry, who all
suspect his and Pamela’s motives. The clergyman eventually suggests that he and Pamela get
married, whereupon the Squire would no longer have any authority to detain her. Pamela
declines this offer, only to find soon after that Mr. B. has written to the clergyman making the
same suggestion. Pamela again rejects the idea.

When a group of thieves attacks Mr. Williams on the road and searches his pockets for
papers, Pamela becomes concerned that Mr. B. sent them to steal her letters, which the
clergyman was carrying. The incident prompts her to make her first escape attempt, but her own
nerves prevent her even from making it across the garden. Soon a further impediment appears in
the person of Monsieur Colbrand, a hideous Swiss man whom Mr. B. has sent to guard
Pamela.
Mr. B., suspecting Mr. Williams of colluding with Pamela, sends him to prison for debt.
Pamela concludes that she has run out of options and makes a desperate escape attempt in the
middle of the night. The attempt fails when a crumbling wall causes injury to her head and legs.
Despairing, Pamela considers drowning herself in the garden pond, but a sudden renewal of her
commitment to life and virtue, which she credits to a divine intervention, saves her. In the
morning, the other servants find her lying wounded in an outhouse, and her captivity continues
as before.

A few days later Mr. B. arrives in Lincolnshire. He serves Pamela with a set of terms on
which he proposes to make her his mistress, but she refuses them scornfully. Changing his
strategy, Mr. B. gets close to Pamela at night by impersonating a drunken maidservant. Pamela’s
swooning fits come to her aid again, and after this episode, Mr. B. shows signs of being
genuinely chastened. He again attempts to woo her but does not employ force. Then, in a heart-
to-heart, he explains to her that he has come to admire her character and in fact deeply loves her,
but his aversion to marriage prevents making an honest proposal. Pamela feels moved by this
confession and hopes fervently that it is sincere.

Mr. B. leaves the Lincolnshire estate for a few days, during which interval Pamela
receives from a gypsy fortune-teller a note warning her of Mr. B.’s plans for entrapping her in a
sham-marriage. This note causes Pamela to react strongly against Mr. B. and against her own
softening feelings for him. When he returns from his trip he receives from Mrs. Jewkes a set of
Pamela’s recent writings; inferring that her “scribbling” has proceeded unabated in Lincolnshire,
he demands to see the rest of her literary output, which Pamela reluctantly hands over. His
reading of these papers only increases his admiration of her character and virtue. He tells her
how deeply the writings have moved him and expresses his regret over his rough usage of her,
promising to make amends. When Pamela, still fearing the sham-marriage, nevertheless repeats
her request to return to her parents, Mr. B. is hurt and finally, in anger, allows her to leave.

Pamela departs the Lincolnshire estate, though not in so happy a mood as she had
expected. During a stopover at a country inn, she receives another letter from Mr. B. in which he
avows that further reading in her papers prompts him to request her return to Lincolnshire.
Pamela, having reconsidering, decides to trust him and complies. Upon her return, they discuss
the likely social fallout from a marriage between a squire and a serving-maid; undeterred, they
enter on their engagement. Pamela then tells Mr. B. the story of the gypsy fortune-teller, and he
admits to having considered perpetrating a sham-marriage but says that he thought the better of
it.

The neighboring gentry, who once refused to aid Pamela’s escape, now come to dinner
and inspect Mr. B.’s betrothed. Pamela impresses everyone with her beauty and comparative
refinement. On the same day, Mr. Andrews arrives, expecting from a letter he received that he
would find his daughter a fully corrupted mistress of the Squire. An ecstatic reunion ensues, of
which all the dinner guests are eager witnesses. Over the next few days, there are a series of
chariot rides, several arguments over the wedding date, and reconciliation between Mr. B. and
Mr. Williams, whom he has liberated from debtors’ prison.

On a Thursday, two weeks after the start of the engagement, Pamela and Mr. B. are
married in the family chapel. Mr. Williams presides over the ceremony and Mrs. Jewkes attends
the bride. The newlyweds originally plan to keep their marriage a secret from the neighbors for
the time being, but after several days Mrs. Jewkes lets the news slip “accidentally” while serving
drinks before a dinner.

That same evening, Mr. B. goes to attend a dying acquaintance. By the next morning, he
has not returned, so Pamela is alone when his sister, Lady Davers, arrives to browbeat the
Squire and his beloved, whom she does not know to be married. Lady Davers badgers and insults
Pamela at some length, detaining her against her will with the help of a nephew and a waiting-
maid. Finally, Pamela escapes through a window and, with the help of her new allies Mrs.
Jewkes and Monsieur Colbrand, makes it to the home of Sir Simon Darnford, where Mr. B.
and the neighbors are expecting her. There she regales the company with the tale of her
experience with Lady Davers.
The next morning, Lady Davers intrudes on the newlyweds in their bedroom, and a
conflict ensues between the brother and sister, where the sister refers to a duel that Mr. B. fought
in Italy. Lady Davers walks off in a huff, but a tentative reconciliation occurs over dinner. After
dinner, however, Lady Davers refers to a woman named Sally Godfrey, prompting Mr. B. to
explain a few things to Pamela. He gives the extenuating back-story on the Italian duel and
confesses to a liaison with Sally, a young woman he met during his college years. He is furious
at having been forced into these confessions before he was ready to make them, and Lady Davers
suddenly regrets having antagonized him so far. She and Pamela join forces to calm the Squire
and effect a reconciliation, to which he eventually agrees. Later, reflecting on his fit of temper,
Mr. B. explains to Pamela all about the upper-class temperament and marital dynamics,
delivering a lecture from which she derives, rather sardonically, a set of rules for married life.
 The next morning, Pamela visits Lady Davers in her room, and they chat amicably about
Mr. B.’s character. Pamela promises to grant her new sister-in-law’s request to see all her
writings.

A few days later, Pamela and Mr. B. return to the Bedfordshire estate, where they receive
a rapturous welcome from the servants. Mr. B. arranges to set up Pamela’s father as the manager
of his estate in Kent. Later they go shopping for clothes and entertain the local gentry, who are
uniformly impressed with Pamela.

Eventually Mr. B. takes Pamela to meet Miss Goodwin, a little girl at a local boarding
school, who Pamela rightly concludes is his daughter by Sally Godfrey. Pamela is delighted with
the child and requests, though in vain, to take her in as part of the Bedfordshire household. Mr.
B. fills out the story of Sally Godfrey, detailing the circumstances of their affair and her eventual
flight to Jamaica, where she is now happily married.
On their second Sunday in Bedfordshire, Pamela and Mr. B. attend church twice, with
Pamela appearing in a spectacular white-and-gold dress. All the neighbors are appropriately
stunned, and the local poor gather to receive alms from the new Lady Bountiful. A few days
later, Pamela and Mr. B. walk together in the garden, are caught in a shower, and shelter in the
summerhouse. There he explains the provisions he has recently made for her in his will. Near the
end of the week, the newlyweds host another dinner for the neighbors; it is an occasion for
Pamela to reflect piously on the goodness of providence and to plan for future good works.

In a conclusion, the “Editor” of Pamela’s letters reveals that Pamela’s later life continues
to be a happy one: she receives semiannual visits from her parents and bears several children.
She remains popular among the local gentry and nobility, and even Lady Davers continues on
good terms with the Squire and his wife. Pamela succeeds in establishing the moral character of
Miss Goodwin, who does not repeat her mother’s mistakes.

Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded Character List

Pamela
A lively, pretty, and courageous maid-servant, age 15, who is subject to the sexual advances of
her new Master, Mr. B., following the death of his mother, Lady B. She is a devoted daughter to
her impoverished parents, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, to whom she writes a prodigious number of
letters and whom she credits with the moral formation that prompts her to defend her purity at all
costs. Pamela resists Mr. B. through the long weeks of his aggression toward her, capitulating
neither to his assaults nor to his later tenderness. Though it takes a while for her to admit it,
Pamela is attracted to Mr. B. from the first, and gradually she comes to love him. They marry
about halfway through the novel, and afterward Pamela’s sweetness and equipoise aid her in
securing the goodwill of her new husband’s highborn friends.
Mr. B.
A country squire, 25 or 26 years of age, with properties in Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire, Kent, and
London. He is Pamela’s employer, pursuer, and eventual husband. Richardson has censored Mr.
B.’s name in order to protect the pretense of non-fiction, but scholars have conjectured based on
manuscripts that the novelist had “Brandon” in mind. Mr. B. has rakish tendencies, and he
attempts to compel Pamela’s reciprocation of his sexual attentions, even to the point of
imprisoning her in his Lincolnshire estate. His fundamental decency prevents him from
consummating any of his assaults on her, however, and under her influence he reforms in the
middle of the novel.
Lady Davers
The married elder sister of Mr. B. to whom the Squire’s Bedfordshire servants apply when trying
to enlist some aid for Pamela. She objects strenuously to the union of her brother with their
mother’s waiting-maid, subjecting Pamela to a harrowing afternoon of insults and bullying, but
eventually comes to accept and value her new sister-in-law. She once cleaned up after her
brother’s affair with Sally Godfrey. Lady Davers is subject to drastic changes in mood, given to
alternate between imperious and abject humors, but she is, like her brother, basically decent.
Lady B.
Pamela’s original employer, the mother of Mr. B. and Lady Davers. Lady B. was morally upright
and kind to Pamela, educating her and contributing to the formation of her virtuous character. On
her deathbed, she told her son to look after all the Bedfordshire servants, especially Pamela.
Mrs. Jewkes
The housekeeper at Mr. B.’s Lincolnshire estate and Pamela’s primary warder during the period
of her captivity. Pamela represents her as a brazen villain, physically hideous and sexually
ambiguous, though the hyperbolic attributions of depravity may be Pamela’s way of deflecting
blame from Mr. B., about whom her feelings are more conflicted. Mrs. Jewkes is devoted to her
Master, to a fault: she is as ready to commit a wrong in his service, not excluding assisting in an
attempted rape of Pamela, as she is to wait loyally on that same Pamela once Mr. B. has decided
to elevate and marry her.
Mrs. Jervis
The elderly housekeeper of Mr. B.’s Bedfordshire estate, one of the virtuous servants who
applies to Lady Davers on behalf of Pamela. She has a genteel background and is an able
manager, presumably the linchpin of the well-ordered Bedfordshire household. Despite her good
nature and her motherly concern for Pamela, however, she is nearly useless in defending her
young friend from their Master’s lecherous advances.
Mr. John Andrews
Pamela’s father and her chief correspondent. He is virtuous and literate like his daughter,
formerly the master of a school, though his fortunes have since declined and he is now an
agricultural laborer. He had two sons, now dead, who pauperized him before dying. Pamela
credits both her parents with forming her character by educating her in virtue and giving her an
example of honest, cheerful poverty.
Mrs. Elizabeth Andrews
Pamela’s mother, who has no independent presence in the novel.
Mr. Williams
The curate (junior pastor) of Mr. B.’s parish in Lincolnshire. Pamela engages his assistance in
her efforts to escape her captivity, and she finds him dutiful but ineffectual; he makes an
unsuccessful bid to become Pamela’s husband, and his efforts on her behalf come decisively to
naught when Mr. B. sends him to debtor’s prison. Overall, he is meritorious but scarcely
appealing, and he suffers from his position as the suitor whom no one takes seriously. Mr. B.’s
drawn-out preoccupation with his “rival” Williams only serves to keep the latter’s risibility in
view.
Monsieur Colbrand
The monstrous Swiss man whom Mr. B. sends to Lincolnshire to keep watch over Pamela. Like
Mrs. Jewkes, he becomes Pamela’s ally after the Squire’s reformation.
Jackey
Lady Davers’s nephew, who accompanies her to Mr. B.’s estate in Lincolnshire and aids her in
browbeating Pamela. He exemplifies what Richardson sees as the aristocratic impulse toward
sexual exploitation of social inferiors, though he is quicker than his aunt in perceiving Pamela’s
innate respectability.
Beck Worden
Lady Davers’s waiting-maid, who attends her at Mr. B.’s estate in Lincolnshire and aids in the
persecution of the newly married Pamela.
John Arnold
A footman at the Bedfordshire estate. In the early stages of the novel he delivers Pamela’s letters
to and from her parents, and Pamela appreciates his cheerfulness is performing this service. After
her abduction, however, he sends her a note confessing that he has allowed Mr. B. to read all of
the correspondence between Pamela and her parents. He has been torn between his duty to Mr.
B. and the promptings of his conscience, and the result is that he comes into conflict with both
Pamela and Mr. B. The Squire dismisses him, but after the marriage, Pamela has him reinstated.
Mr. Longman
The steward at the Bedfordshire estate, one of the virtuous servants who applies to Lady Davers
on behalf of Pamela. He admires Pamela and supplies her with the abundant writing materials
that allow her to continue her journal during her captivity in Lincolnshire.
Mr. Jonathan
The butler at the Bedfordshire estate, one of the virtuous servants who applies to Lady Davers on
behalf of Pamela.
Nan (or Ann)
A servant-girl at the Lincolnshire estate. Mrs. Jewkes gets her drunk and Mr. B. impersonates her
on the night of his last attempt on Pamela’s virtue.
Sally Godfrey
Mr. B.’s mistress from his college days. She bore him a child, the future Miss Goodwin, and then
fled to Jamaica, where she is now happily married.
Miss Goodwin
Mr. B.’s illegitimate daughter by Sally Godfrey. She lives at a boarding school in Bedfordshire
and does not know who her parents are; she addresses Mr. B. as her “uncle.”
Sir Simon Darnford
A noble neighbor of Mr. B. in Lincolnshire. He refuses to help Pamela when Mr. Williams
applies to him but comes to admire her after her elevation by Mr. B. He is given to dirty jokes.
Lady Darnford
The wife of Sir Simon Darnford.
Miss Darnford (the elder)
The first daughter of Sir Simon and Lady Darnford. She once had hopes of marrying Mr. B., but
she accepts Pamela’s triumph sportingly.
Miss Darnford (the younger)
The second daughter of Sir Simon and Lady Darnford. She joins her sister in demanding a ball to
commemorate the nuptials of Pamela and Mr. B.
Mr. Peters
The vicar of Mr. B.’s parish in Lincolnshire. He refuses to help Pamela when Mr. Williams
applies to him but eventually gives Pamela away at her wedding.
Mrs. Peters
The wife of Mr. Peters.
Lady Jones
A noble neighbor of Mr. B. in Lincolnshire.
Mr. Perry
A genteel neighbor of Mr. B. in Lincolnshire.
Mr. Martin
A genteel but rakish neighbor of Mr. B. in Bedfordshire. Pamela dislikes him due to his penchant
for saying cynical things about married life.
Mr. Arthur
A genteel neighbor of Mr. B. in Bedfordshire.
Mrs. Arthur
The wife of Mr. Arthur.
Mr. Towers
A genteel neighbor of Mr. B. in Bedfordshire.
Lady Towers
A renowned “wit,” the wife of Mr. Towers.
Mr. Brooks
A genteel neighbor of Mr. B. in Bedfordshire.
Mrs. Brooks
The wife of Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Chambers
A genteel neighbor of Mr. B. in Bedfordshire.
Mrs. Chambers
The wife of Mr. Chambers.
Mr. Carlton
An acquaintance of Mr. B. in Lincolnshire who dies shortly after the wedding. His distress at the
end motivates Mr. B. to make arrangements that will provide for Pamela in the event of his early
death.
Farmer Nichols’s wife and daughters
Neighbors in Bedfordshire from whom Pamela buys material to make a gown and petticoats.
A gypsy fortune-teller
The agent who delivers to Pamela a note from Mr. Longman warning her of Mr. B.’s plans for a
sham-marriage.
Rachel, Cicely, and Hannah
Maidservants at the Bedfordshire estate.
Harry, Isaac, and Benjamin
Manservants at the Bedfordshire estate.
Richard, Roger, and Thomas
Grooms at the Bedfordshire estate.
Robin
The coachman at the Lincolnshire estate.
Abraham
A footman at the Bedfordshire estate.
Miss Dobson
Miss Goodwin’s governess at the boarding school.
Miss Booth, Miss Burdoff, and Miss Nugent
Peers of Miss Goodwin at the boarding school.

Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded Themes

The Nature of Virtue
Richardson’s novel has often given the impression of defining “virtue” too narrowly and
negatively, as the physical condition of virginity before marriage. The novel’s conception of
virtue is actually more capacious than its detractors have allowed, however. To begin
with, Pamela makes a sensible distinction between losing her virginity involuntarily and
acquiescing in a seduction. Only the latter would be a transgression against sexual virtue.
Moreover, almost the entire second half of the novel is taken up with the explication and praise
of Pamela’s positive qualities of generosity and benevolence. Mr. B. values these qualities, and
they have brought him to propose marriage: reading her journal, he has discovered her genuine
goodwill toward him, particularly in her rejoicing over his escape from death by drowning. As a
result, Pamela's active goodness merits the “reward” of a happy marriage as much as her defense
of her virginity.
The Integrity of the Individual
Richardson’s fiction commonly portrays individuals struggling to balance incompatible demands
on their integrity: Pamela, for instance, must either compromise her own sense of right or offend
her Master, who deserves her obedience except insofar as he makes illicit demands on her. This
highly conscientious servant and Christian must work scrupulously to defy her Master’s will
only to the degree that it is necessary to preserve her virtue; to do any less would be irreligious,
while to do any more would be contumacious, and the successful balance of these conflicting
claims represents the greatest expression of Pamela’s personal integrity. Meanwhile, those
modern readers who dismiss Pamela’s defense of her virtue as fatally old-fashioned might
consider the issue from the standpoint of the individual’s right to self-determination. Pamela has
a right to stand on her own principles, whatever they are, so that as so often in English literature,
physical virginity stands in for individual morality and belief: no one, Squire or King, has the
right to expect another person to violate the standards of her own conscience.
Class Politics
One of the great social facts of Richardson’s day was the intermingling of the aspirant middle
class with the gentry and aristocracy. The eighteenth century was a golden age of social climbing
and thereby of satire (primarily in poetry), but Richardson was the first novelist to turn his
serious regard on class difference and class tension. Pamela’s class status is ambiguous at the
start of the novel. She is on good terms with the other Bedfordshire servants, and the pleasure
she takes in their respect for her shows that she does not consider herself above them; her
position as a lady’s maid, however, has led to her acquiring refinements of education and manner
that unfit her for the work of common servants: when she attempts to scour a plate, her soft hand
develops a blister. Moreover, Richardson does some fudging with respect to her origins when he
specifies that her father is an educated man who was not always a peasant but once ran a school.

If this hedging suggests latent class snobbery on Richardson’s part, however, the novelist does
not fail to insist that those who receive privileges under the system bear responsibilities also, and
correspondingly those on the lower rungs of the ladder are entitled to claim rights of their
superiors. Thus, in the early part of the novel, Pamela emphasizes that Mr. B., in harassing her,
violates his duty to protect the social inferiors under his care; after his reformation in the middle
of the novel, she repeatedly lauds the “Godlike Power" of doing good that is the special pleasure
and burden of the wealthy. Whether Richardson’s stress on the reciprocal obligations that
characterize the harmonious social order expresses genuine concern for the working class, or
whether it is simply an insidious justification of an inequitable power structure, is a matter for
individual readers to decide.
Sexual Politics
Sexual inequality was a common theme of eighteenth-century social commentators and political
philosophers: certain religious groups were agitating for universal suffrage, John Locke argued
for universal education, and the feminist Mary Astell decried the inequities of the marital state.
Though Richardson’s decision to have Pamela fall in love with her would-be rapist has rankled
many advocates of women’s rights in recent years, he remains in some senses a feminist writer
due to his sympathetic interest in the hopes and concerns of women. He allows Pamela to
comment acerbically on the hoary theme of the sexual double standard: “those Things don’t
disgrace Men, that ruin poor Women, as the World goes.” In addition, Sally
Godfrey demonstrates the truth of this remark by going to great lengths (and a long distance) to
avoid ruination after her connection with Mr. B., who comes through the episode comparatively
unscathed.
Not only as regards extramarital activities but also as regards marriage itself, eighteenth-century
society stacked the deck against women: a wife had no legal existence apart from her husband,
and as Jocelyn Harris notes, Pamela in marrying Mr. B. commits herself irrevocably to a man
whom she hardly knows and who has not been notable for either his placid temper or his
steadfast monogamy; Pamela’s private sarcasms after her marriage, then, register subtly
Richardson’s appropriate misgivings about matrimony as a reward for virtue. Perhaps above all,
however, Richardson’s sympathy for the feminine view of things emerges in his presentation of
certain contrasts between the feminine and masculine psyches. Pamela’s psychological subtlety
counters Mr. B.’s simplicity, her emotional refinement counters his crudity, and her
perceptiveness defeats his callousness, with the result that Mr. B. must give up his masculine,
aggressive persona and embrace instead the civilizing feminine values of his new wife.
Psychology and the Self
In composing Pamela, Richardson wanted to explore human psychology in ways that no other
writer had. His innovative narrative method, in which Pamela records her thoughts as they occur
to her and soon after the events that have inspired them, he called “writing to the moment”; his
goal was to convey “those lively and delicate Impressions, which Things Present are known to
make upon the Minds of those affected by them,” on the theory that “in the Study of human
Nature the Knowledge of those Apprehensions leads us farther into the Recesses of the human
Mind, than the colder and more general Reflections suited to a continued . . . Narrative.” The
most profound psychological portrait, then, arises from the depiction, in the heat of the moment,
of spontaneous and unfiltered thoughts. Nevertheless, Richardson’s eagerness to illuminate the
“Recesses of the human Mind” is balanced by a sense of these mental recesses as private spaces
that outsiders should not enter without permission.
Although the overt plot of the novel addresses Mr. B.’s efforts to invade the recesses of Pamela’s
physical person, the secondary plot in which she must defend the secrecy of her writings shows
the Squire equally keen to intrude upon her inmost psyche. Beginning with the incident in Letter
I when she reacts to Mr. B.’s sudden appearance by concealing her letter in her bosom, Pamela
instinctively resists her Master’s attempts to expose her private thoughts; as she says, “what one
writes to one’s Father and Mother, is not for every body.” It is not until Mr. B. learns to respect
both Pamela’s body and her writings, relinquishing access to them except when she voluntarily
offers it, that he becomes worthy of either physical or psychological intimacy with her.
Hypocrisy and Self-Knowledge
Since the initial publication of Pamela in 1740, critics of Richardson’s moralistic novel have
accused its heroine of hypocrisy, charging that her ostensible virtue is simply a reverse-
psychological ploy for attracting Mr. B. This criticism has a certain merit, in that Pamela does
indeed turn out to be more positively disposed toward her Master than she has let on; in her
defense, however, her misrepresentation of her feelings has not been deliberate, as she is quite
the last person to figure out what her “treacherous, treacherous Heart” has felt. Pamela’s
difficulty in coming to know her own heart raises larger questions of the possibility of accurate
disclosure: if Pamela cannot even tell herself the truth, then what chance is there that
interpersonal communication will be any more transparent?
The issue crystallizes when, during her captivity in Lincolnshire, Pamela becomes of necessity
almost compulsively suspicious of appearances. This understandable defense mechanism
develops into a character flaw when it combines with her natural tendency toward pride and
aloofness to prevent her reposing trust in Mr. B. when, finally, he deserves it. The lovers thus
remain at cross-purposes when they should be coming together, and only Mr. B.’s persistence
secures the union that Pamela’s suspicions have jeopardized. While the novel, then, evinces
skepticism toward the possibility of coming to know oneself or another fully, it balances that
skepticism with an emphasis on the necessity of trusting to what cannot be fully known, lest all
opportunities of fulfilling human relationships be lost.
Realism and Country Life
Eighteenth-century literature tended to idealize the life of rustic simplicity that Pamela typifies.
Dramatists were fond of rendering the tale of the licentious squire and the chaste maiden in a
high romantic strain, and Margaret Anne Doody points out that Mr. B., when he displays Pamela
to the neighbors as “my pretty Rustick,” implicitly calls on the traditional identification of
country lasses with natural beauty and pastoral innocence. Richardson, however, disappoints
these idyllic expectations by having Pamela tell her story in the “low” style that is realistically
appropriate to her class, as well as through his generous incorporation of naturalistic details. Far
from idealizing the countryside, Richardson recurs to the dirt in which Pamela conceals her
writings and plants her horse beans. In selecting his imagery, Richardson favors not the wood
nymphs and sentimental willows of pastoral romance but such homely items as Pamela’s flannel,
Mr. B.’s boiled chicken, the carp in the pond, the grass in the garden, the mould, a cake, and the
shoes that Mrs. Jewkes periodically confiscates from Pamela. By refusing to compromise on
the lowliness of his heroine and her surroundings, Richardson makes a statement that is both
socially progressive and aesthetically radical. To discover dramatic significance, Richardson
does not look to the great cities and the exemplars of public greatness who reside there; he
maintains, rather, that much of equal or greater significance inheres in the private actions and
passions of common people.

Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded Quotes and Analysis

“Indeed I am Pamela, her own self!”

Pamela, 56
Pamela makes this declaration of her identity during the early incident in which Mr. B. pretends
not to recognize her in her country clothes and uses his pretext of confusion to get close to her.
The incident and Pamela’s reaction underscore the fact that the battle to determine whom Pamela
will sleep with is also the battle to determine who Pamela is: Pamela, in committing herself to a
personal set of compelling principles, establishes her own identity, which Mr. B. threatens to
erode by inducing her to violate those principles. The debate over Pamela’s identity also surfaces
in their disagreements, apparent in this scene, over what she should wear. The country wardrobe
Pamela has selected manifests to the world her choice of honest, cheerful poverty over corrupt
luxury; Mr. B., taking a break from his efforts to dress Pamela in a wardrobe befitting his
mistress, seeks to adulterate the meaning of her chosen clothes by interpreting them as a mode of
coquetry.
“And pray, said I, walking on, how came I to be his Property? What right has he
in me, but such as a Thief may plead to stolen Goods?---Why, was ever the like
heard, says she!---This is downright Rebellion, I protest!”

Pamela, 126
This exchange between Pamela and Mrs. Jewkes takes place soon after Pamela’s arrival in
Lincolnshire. It contains the heart of the novel’s massive appeal to the eighteenth-century public,
namely its revolutionary message of personal autonomy. Pamela asserts her ownership of herself
and questions Mr. B.’s right to detain her against her will; Mrs. Jewkes catches the radical
assumptions implicit in Pamela’s reasoning and objects to them as the basis of “downright
Rebellion.” In the end, of course, the novel’s plot does not pursue the implications of Pamela’s
questions to their conclusions; indeed, it stops far short even of having her begrudge the
ascendancy, after their marriage, of Mr. B. over his morally and intellectually superior wife.
What with her insistently demotic speech and penchant for back talk, however, something of the
insurrectionist always clings to Pamela, no matter how many shows of wifely deference she
makes.
“O Sir! my Soul is of equal Importance with the Soul of a Princess; though my
Quality is inferior to that of the meanest Slave.”

Pamela, 158
This exclamation, which Pamela makes in the course of a letter to Mr. Williams, expresses the
radical statement at the heart of Richardson’s novel, namely that the moral life of the individual
possesses an absolute value that transcends social distinctions. Mr. Williams, being a clergyman
and thereby a moralist, is more receptive to this argument than are any of the other characters in
the book, at least until Mr. B. undergoes his conversion. The aesthetic corollary of this axiom, of
course, is the literary value of a story that dramatizes the fate of a soul on the bottom of the
social scale; behind Pamela, then, one may detect Richardson justifying his choice of a country
servant-girl as the focus of his serious moral and artistic regard.
“[T]here is such a pretty Air of Romance, as you relate them, in your Plots, and
my Plots, that I shall be better directed in what manner to wind up the
Catastrophe of the pretty Novel.”

Pamela, 232
This excerpt is one of Mr. B.’s flippant justifications of his desire to read Pamela’s letters in full.
He often accuses her of fictionalizing events when she recounts them in her letters to her parents;
whatever merit there may be in that charge (and Mr. B. never credibly disputes anything in her
accounts), his trivialization of Pamela’s “Plots” to escape him reveals how poorly he understands
her at this point in the novel. Mr. B. also likes to dismiss Pamela’s investment in her sexual
virtue by suggesting that she is taking her cues from literary traditions that exalt female purity
unrealistically; elsewhere, he imagines her “echo[ing] to the Woods and Groves her piteous
Lamentations for the Loss of her fantastical Innocence, which the romantick Idiot makes such a
work about.” Pamela, though, is no Don Quixote: she never glamorizes her danger or employs
the hackneyed romantic language that Mr. B. puts in her mouth. Ironically, Mr. B. is the
unrealistic one in this scenario, believing so faithfully in the cliché of the sexually privileged
squire that he cannot recognize Pamela’s very different vision of their relationship.
“I know not how it came, nor when it begun; but creep, creep it has, like a Thief
upon me; and before I knew what the Matter was, it look’d like Love.”

Pamela, 248
Shortly after Mr. B. dismisses her angrily from Lincolnshire, Pamela marvels at the progress that
her feelings for him have made, all unbeknownst to her. Up to this point, the story has followed
Pamela’s efforts to discern, as a matter of self-preservation, the content of the hearts of those
around her, so that she might know who her friends and enemies are. That project has been
thorny enough, but Richardson now confronts her with the even greater challenge of knowing the
content of her own heart. As it turns out, Pamela has acted her own enemy in her recent conduct
toward Mr. B. Whether her acting counter to her genuine feeling makes Pamela a hypocrite, as
has so often been charged, or whether it simply makes her lacking in self-knowledge, is a matter
for individual readers to decide.
“Thus foolishly dialogu’d I with my Heart; and yet all the time this Heart is
Pamela.”

Pamela, 251
Pamela pens this observation soon after her dismissal from Lincolnshire has triggered her long-
delayed recognition of her love for Mr. B. In a crucial distinction, “Pamela” is not her head but
her heart: her love for Mr. B. has been no weaker for her ignorance of it because the truth of her
emotions trumps whatever she knows or does not know intellectually. Even more generally, this
identification of Pamela’s heart with her deepest self is part of the novel’s statement of the
dignity of instinct and emotion. As one critic has put it, Richardson presents love as (in Pamela’s
words) an “irresistible Impulse”; though it may require control, its basic promptings are to be
heeded. Mr. B. originally went about his pursuit of Pamela in the wrong way, but his instinct to
secure her as a mate was the right one, and now Pamela, in returning to him, will respond to the
same very elementary promptings.
“[L]et us talk of nothing henceforth but Equality.”

Pamela, 350
After their wedding, and after so many exchanges in which Mr. B. has reminded Pamela of her
lowly place in the social hierarchy, finally he addresses her as an equal. Not that she is legally
her husband’s equal; indeed, she still has no rights under the law. Neither Mr. B. nor Richardson
(nor, indeed, Pamela), however, advocates the elimination of all social distinctions; they base
their claim for human equality in the right of each individual to follow his or her own
conscience. By asserting this right in her letters, and concomitantly seizing narrative authority
when legal and social authority were denied her, Pamela has secured recognition of it by that
most immediate authority, her former Master, now her husband.
“[B]y the Ace, I have always thought the Laws of the Land denoted; and, as the
Ace is above the King or Queen, and wins them; I think the Law should be
thought so too.”

Pamela, 405
At a dinner at the Darnfords’, soon after Pamela and Mr. B.’s wedding, the Squire discourses on
political philosophy with a pack of playing cards as his inspiration. Previously, Mr. B. has been a
law unto himself; as both a Member of Parliament and a Justice of the Peace, he has enjoyed an
over-concentration of power (handling both the legislative and judicial functions for his borough)
that would appall the American Founders. During Pamela’s captivity in Lincolnshire, he even
served a preemptive warrant for her arrest in the event of her ever escaping: lawless himself, he
controlled the laws, and the result was a case study in tyranny. One fruit of his moral
reformation, however, is a renewed respect for the law, which he now suggests that he will place
above all social authorities, even the most exalted, and including, implicitly, himself.
“[H]er Person made me her Lover; but her Mind made her my Wife.”

Pamela, 474
Back in Bedfordshire near the end of the novel, Mr. B. explains to his rakish friends why he
decided to marry Pamela. His explanation involves a distinction between Pamela’s mind and her
body (or “Person”) and the different responses appropriate to each. In former days, Mr. B. was
categorically averse to matrimony; one of the casualties of this aversion was the life in England
of Sally Godfrey, and the only thing that prevented his continuing to treat Pamela as Sally
Godfrey II was the acquaintance with Pamela’s mind that he acquired through his reading of her
letters. Crucially, however, the distinction between mind and body, or husband and lover, is not
an opposition: the mental and the physical are not mutually exclusive in this arrangement but
rather complementary. Mr. B.’s bodily attraction to Pamela is not sufficient to make him a good
husband for her, but neither does it lead him astray; rather, the value he eventually places on her
moral and emotional life, her head and heart, serves to sanction his original, pre-intellectual
impulse.
“All the Good I can do, is but a poor third-hand Good; for my dearest Master
himself is but the Second-hand. GOD, the All-gracious, the All-good, the All-
bountiful, the All-mighty, the All-merciful GOD, is the First: To HIM,
therefore, be all the Glory!”

Pamela, 497
This passage, one of her final reflections in the novel, is Pamela’s effort to inoculate herself
against the possibility of vanity and pride in her new position. Her propensity for crediting God
with all positive developments and her own accomplishments has been a consistent feature of
Pamela’s letters and journal, but the present passage incorporates her customary piety with some
of Richardson’s views on the social order. The theme of what the powerful owe to the powerless
emerges, as what Pamela claims to value in her new life is not the material advantages accruing
to her exalted condition but rather “the Good that [she] can do” for others. Also apparent is a
distinctly hierarchical conception of authority: Pamela’s husband, by virtue of being her
husband, merits her deference as a steward of the authority descending from God; conservative
sentiments such as this one serve to qualify the novel’s revolutionary advocacy of self-
determination by declining to translate it into political action.

Biography of Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson was born into relative poverty as one of nine children in the midland
country of Derbyshire in England. The Richardson family moved to East London in 1700, and
around this time, Samuel received a brief grammar-school education.

The young Samuel, being a pious and studious boy, wanted to be a clergyman; his father
endorsed the choice but, being a mere joiner (that is, a carpenter specializing in domestic
interiors), could not afford to pay for the university education that was a requirement for
ordination in the Church of England. The elder Richardson allowed Samuel to choose his
fallback profession, and the youth decided to be a printer on the theory, as he would later tell his
Dutch translator, that “it would gratify my Thirst after Reading.”

He began his apprenticeship in 1706 and continued in it for seven years. During that
period he took his own education in hand, and in spite of the stinginess of his master, who
grudged Richardson every hour spent away from his work, was soon well on his way to
becoming one of the great autodidacts of English literature. He read widely in order to
compensate for having received little formal, and certainly no classical, learning; the effects are
apparent in his writing, which tends to favor colloquial and vernacular speech, spontaneity over
ingenuity, sincerity over irony, and so on.
 Richardson married his master’s daughter, Martha Wilde, in 1721. Their marriage was
apparently a happy one, except that none of their six children would live past the age of three.
Soon after Martha died in 1731, Richardson married Elizabeth Leake, who bore six more
children, with four surviving to adulthood.

His printing career was more uniformly successful than were his efforts of begetting
offspring. The model of the industrious Puritan bourgeois businessman (rising at five in the
morning and turning in at eleven at night), he rose to become official printer for the House of
Commons and printer of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (essentially
England’s Academy of Sciences). His peers in the printing business elected him Master of the
Stationers’ Company (the livery company, or guild, of London printers).

As a printer, Richardson naturally had extensive contact with the book-selling world. His
demonstrated familiarity with the literary marketplace caused many booksellers to consult him
on the literary quality of their wares. He was also a prolific writer of letters, and his reputation as
such led two booksellers to approach him in 1739, asking him to produce a volume of model
letters. Called a “letter-writer,” the genre comprised exemplary letters that, in their form,
provided the semiliterate with adaptable epistolary templates and, in their content, proffered
practical, social, or moral advice about common predicaments. In Letters Written to and for
Particular Friends, on the Most Important Occasions (1741), Richardson addressed a number of
fictional situations, including that of attractive servant-girls subject to plots against their virtue.
In the middle of the composition process, Richardson set aside these model letters in order to
take up in detail the situation that particularly fired his imagination, that of the virtuous servant-
girl fending off a lecherous master. The result of this new project was Pamela (1740).
The publication of Pamela was a massive cultural event, inspiring praise and condemnation,
imitations and parodies. Richardson’s first follow-up was a sequel, Pamela in her Exalted
Condition (1741), which he designed primarily to override the unauthorized sequels afloat in the
marketplace. His other major works were the novels Clarissa (1748) and Sir Charles
Grandison (1753).
Fame did not alter Richardson’s lifestyle as one might expect, since he continued with his
printing business and with his customary pastimes, such as letter writing. The major change in
his everyday life was perhaps the friendships he was able to cultivate with members of the
aristocracy; for a striving middle-class admirer of inherited privilege, this contact with the
nobility answered a lifelong social craving. The literary figures with whom Richardson
associated, such as Samuel Johnson and William Hogarth, were an illustrious company but might
have come into his orbit even had he remained merely one of London’s preeminent printers.

Richardson’s reputation was mixed: he received lavish praise and lavish criticism. Denis Diderot
classed him with Homer and Sophocles, while Fielding joined with others who ridiculed
sanctimonious and morally ambiguous elements in Richardson’s work. Toward the end of
Richardson’s lifetime, and for some decades after his death, he commanded a degree of
international prestige unparalleled by any contemporary English writer. His novels were
translated into all the major European languages and continued to inspire imitations and
theatrical adaptations until the end of the century.

In the later stages of his life, he suffered from a nervous ailment that may have been Parkinson’s
disease. He died of a stroke at age 71.