Samuel Richardson, Or Virtue Rewarded

August 19 was the baptismal date of author Samuel Richardson (1689-1761).

Richardson’s biographical profile is unique among early British literary figures in that he was an autodidact. He had worked for over three decades as a printer before making his debut as a novelist at the age of 51 in 1740. By that rather advanced age, he had become a connoisseur of the written word, having printed hundreds of works, including some of the later books of Daniel Defoe. He had undertaken some non-fiction writing by that point, and hundreds of letters, but never thought of penning a fictional work until he was asked to create a book of letter-writing templates. His notion to make his examples of letters be morally instructive blossomed into a full-blown epistolary novel called Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded.

The 15 year old heroine of the title is a servant girl, harassed by an older man for sex, but remaining steadfast in her refusal. In the end she is rewarded for her virtue with a proposal of marriage — a dubious outcome, in the eyes of many. At any rate, Richardson’s experiment was a major publishing phenomenon for its day, with record-breaking sales. Like Defoe’s Moll Flanders, it had racy sex (or its prospect) at its center. Richardson’s innovation was the moral message, which some admired, and others found insufficient. The book was thought improper by some on the basis of sexual content, and class mixing. Others were scornful of the facile and sentimental moralizing. Others admired its style; after all, this was a case of an older man creating the voice of a young girl from the lower classes. Pope and Dr. Johnson admired the book. Henry Fielding parodied it (and his later books) in his works Shamela, Joseph Andrews, and Tom Jones.

With upwards of 15 pirated sequels hitting the streets in the wake of Pamela’s success, Richardson undertook his own one, Pamela in her Exalted Condition, which didn’t do as well. He then rebounded with Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady (1747). His third book, concerning a “male Pamela” was the less remembered The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753).

Richardson’s skill, and foundational importance in the timeline of world literature are too distinguished to dismiss him as a dilletante. Yet there is something about the paucity of his output and the conventionality of his sentiments that could inspire such a suspicion. Yet, like the record producer who decides to make his own album, or the film critic who makes his own movie, he knew what he was about. Pamela and Clarissa are still read, studied, discussed, admired and ridiculed, going on three centuries later.