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Pamela, by Samuel Richardson
Project Gutenberg's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, by
Samuel Richardson
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Title: Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
Author: Samuel Richardson
Release Date: April 23, 2009 [EBook #6124]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
PAMELA, OR VIRTUE REWARDED ***
Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger
PAMELA
or
VIRTUE REWARDED
By Samuel Richardson
Contents
PAMELA, or VIRTUE REWARDED
LETTER I
LETTER II
LETTER III
LETTER IV
LETTER V
LETTER VI
LETTER VII
LETTER VIII
LETTER IX
LETTER X
LETTER XI
LETTER XII
LETTER XIII
LETTER XIV
LETTER XV
LETTER XVI
LETTER XVII
LETTER XVIII
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LETTER XIX
LETTER XXX
LETTER XXXI
LETTER XXXII
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
Samuel Richardson, the first, in order of time, of the
great English novelists, was born in 1689 and died at
London in 1761. He was a printer by trade, and rose
to be master of the Stationers' Company. That he also
became a novelist was due to his skill as a letter-
writer, which brought him, in his fiftieth year, a
commission to write a volume of model "familiar
letters" as an aid to persons too illiterate to compose
their own. The notion of connecting these letters by a
story which had interested him suggested the plot of
"Pamela" and determined its epistolary formÏa form
which was retained in his later works.
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This novel (published 1740) created an epoch in the
history of English fiction, and, with its successors,
exerted a wide influence upon Continental literature.
It is appropriately included in a series which is
designed to form a group of studies of English life by
the masters of English fiction. For it marked the
transition from the novel of adventure to the novel of
characterÏfrom the narration of entertaining events
to the study of men and of manners, of motives and
of sentiments. In it the romantic interest of the story
(which is of the slightest) is subordinated to the
moral interest in the conduct of its characters in the
various situations in which they are placed. Upon this
aspect of the "drama of human life" Richardson cast
a most observant, if not always a penetrating glance.
His works are an almost microscopically detailed
picture of English domestic life in the early part of
the eighteenth century.
PAMELA, or VIRTUE
REWARDED
LETTER I
DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,
I have great trouble, and some comfort, to acquaint
you with. The trouble is, that my good lady died of
the illness I mentioned to you, and left us all much
grieved for the loss of her; for she was a dear good
lady, and kind to all us her servants. Much I feared,
that as I was taken by her ladyship to wait upon her
person, I should be quite destitute again, and forced
to return to you and my poor mother, who have
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enough to do to maintain yourselves; and, as my
lady's goodness had put me to write and cast
accounts, and made me a little expert at my needle,
and otherwise qualified above my degree, it was not
every family that could have found a place that your
poor Pamela was fit for: but God, whose
graciousness to us we have so often experienced at a
pinch, put it into my good lady's heart, on her death-
bed, just an hour before she expired, to recommend
to my young master all her servants, one by one; and
when it came to my turn to be recommended, (for I
was sobbing and crying at her pillow) she could only
say, My dear son!Ïand so broke off a little; and then
recoveringÏRemember my poor PamelaÏAnd these
were some of her last words! O how my eyes runÏ
Don't wonder to see the paper so blotted.
Well, but God's will must be done!ÏAnd so comes
the comfort, that I shall not be obliged to return back
to be a clog upon my dear parents! For my master
said, I will take care of you all, my good maidens;
and for you, Pamela, (and took me by the hand; yes,
he took my hand before them all,) for my dear
mother's sake, I will be a friend to you, and you shall
take care of my linen. God bless him! and pray with
me, my dear father and mother, for a blessing upon
him, for he has given mourning and a year's wages to
all my lady's servants; and I having no wages as yet,
my lady having said she should do for me as I
deserved, ordered the housekeeper to give me
mourning with the rest; and gave me with his own
hand four golden guineas, and some silver, which
were in my old lady's pocket when she died; and
said, if I was a good girl, and faithful and diligent, he
would be a friend to me, for his mother's sake. And
so I send you these four guineas for your comfort; for
Providence will not let me want: And so you may
pay some old debt with part, and keep the other part
to comfort you both. If I get more, I am sure it is my
duty, and it shall be my care, to love and cherish you
both; for you have loved and cherished me, when I
could do nothing for myself. I send them by John,
our footman, who goes your way: but he does not
know what he carries; because I seal them up in one
of the little pill-boxes, which my lady had, wrapt
close in paper, that they mayn't chink; and be sure
don't open it before him.

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