Pamela by Samuel Richardson
Unfolding through letters, the novel depicts with much feeling Pamela's struggles to decide how to respond to her would-be seducer and to determine her place in society. Samuel Richardson (1689–1761), a prominent London printer, is considered by many the father of the English novel, and Pamela the first modern novel. Following its hugely successful publication in 1740, it went on to become one of the most influential books in literary history, setting the course for the novel for the next century and beyond. Pamela reflects changing social roles in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, as a rising middle class offered women more choices and as traditional master-servant relationships underwent change.Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was an English writer and printer. Born the son of a carpenter, Richardson received a limited education before becoming a printer's apprentice. He established his own shop in 1719 and received his first major contract in 1723, printing a bi-weekly Jacobite newspaper which was soon censored. Having married in 1721, Richardson and his wife Martha Wilde suffered the loss of several sons before Martha succumbed to illness in 1732. Devastated, Richardson eventually remarried and focused on his career, earning a contract with the House of Commons in 1733 and hiring several apprentices to assist him at his shop. During this time, Richardson turned to fiction, publishing his first novel, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded in 1740, a work now considered the first modern novel. Throughout the remainder of his career, he published two more epistolary novels--Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753)--while continuing his work as a prominent and successful printer. He published and befriended many of the leading writers of his time, including Daniel Defoe, Sarah Fielding, and Samuel Johnson.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780393001662 |
| ISBN 10 | 0393001660 |
| Title | Pamela |
| Author | Samuel Richardson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | WW Norton & Co |
| Year published | 1958-04-01 |
| Number of pages | 544 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |