帕梅拉 (1740)

《帕梅拉》（Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded）是1740年英格兰作家塞缪尔·理查森出版的一部书信体小说，讲的是天真的小女仆帕梅拉·安德鲁斯（Pamela Andrews）和她的主人B先生的故事，帕梅拉母亲死后，B先生多次引诱、骚扰她，都被她拒绝，最终诚恳地向她求婚，她因此得以跻身上流社会。《帕梅拉》在当时就是一部畅销书，但由于由于涉及家庭暴力、社会壁垒等问题备受批评。

《帕梅拉》出版后两年，理查森出版了续集《地位提高以后的帕梅拉》（Pamela in her Exalted Condition）。1753年的《葛狄生爵士》（The History of Sir Charles Grandison）中，理查森又试图创作一个男版的帕梅拉。

Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel first published anonymously in 1740 by the English writer Samuel Richardson. Considered one of the first true English novels, it serves as Richardson's version of conduct literature about marriage.

Pamela tells the story of a fifteen-year-old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose employer, Mr. B, a wealthy landowner, makes unwanted and inappropriate advances towards her after the death of his mother. 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. After various unsuccessful attempts at seduction, a series of sexual assaults and an extended period of kidnapping, the rakish Mr. B eventually reforms and makes Pamela a sincere proposal of marriage. In the novel's second part, Pamela marries Mr. B and tries to acclimatise to her new position in upper-class society.

The full title, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, makes plain Richardson's moral purpose. A best-seller of its time, Pamela was widely read but was also criticised for its perceived licentiousness and disregard for class barriers. 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. Moreover, Pamela, despite the controversies, 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.

Richardson highlights a theme of naivety, illustrated through the eyes of Pamela. Richardson paints Pamela herself as innocent and meek and further contributes to the theme of her being short-sighted to emphasize the ideas of childhood innocence and naivety.

Two years after the publication of Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, Richardson published a sequel, Pamela in her Exalted Condition (1742). He revisited the theme of the rake in his Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady (1748), and sought to create a "male Pamela" in Sir Charles Grandison (1753).

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.

Plot summary

Volume 1

Pamela Andrews is a pious, virtuous fifteen-year-old, the daughter of impoverished labourers, who works for Lady B as a maid in her Bedfordshire estate. After Lady B's death, her son, Mr. B, inherits the estate, and begins to pay Pamela romantic attention: first gifting her his mother's fine clothes, and then attempting to seduce her. Pamela rejects Mr. B's advances multiple times by fleeing and locking herself in her bedroom. In one instance, she faints, and finds the laces of her stays have been cut.

When Mr. B attempts to pay her to keep his failed seduction secret, she confides in her best friend and housekeeper of the estate, Mrs. Jervis. Later, Mr. B hides in Pamela's closet and tries to kiss her when she undresses for bed, which causes Pamela to consider leaving her position and returning to her parents to preserve her innocence. She is insistent on remaining at the estate to finish embroidering a waistcoat for Mr. B, hoping that by doing so he will let her leave on good terms.