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to prompt: spingere
equipoise: equilibrio
goodwill: benevolenza
squire: possidente, signore
rakish: dissoluto
compel: forzare
enlist: ottenere
harrowing: straziante
abject: spregevole
warder: secondino
brazen: sfacciato
hideous: orrendo
to pauperize: impoverire
meritorious: meritevole
suitor: corteggiatore
risibility: comicità
latter: quest'ultimo

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Richardson began writing Pamela as a conduct book, but as he was writing, the series of letters turned into a story. He then decided to write in a different genre: the new form, the novel, which attempted to instruct through entertainment. In fact, most novels from the mid-18th century and well into the 19th, followed Richardson's lead and claimed legitimacy through the ability to teach as well as amuse. Conduct books are a genre of books that attempt to educate the reader on social norms.  As a genre, they began in the mid-to-late Middle Ages and remained popular through the 18th century, although they gradually declined with the advent of the novel.

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Pamela is a sort of variant of the Cinderella story. In fact the two protagonists gained as reward an elevated social status, after a life full of difficulties, hard work and the two heroines can finally see a world totally different and new from the previous one.

The popular TV series (26 episodes) Elisa di Rivombrosa is loosely based on Pamela. The story takes place in the second half of the 18th century in Turin (Italy). The role of Pamela is that of Elisa Scalzi (played by Vittoria Puccini) in the series. The role of Mr. B is that of Count Fabrizio Ristori (played by Alessandro Preziosi).

In Charlotte Brontë's work "Jane Eyre", Jane mentions Bessie's nursery stories and how some of them came from Pamela.

Pamela is a series of twelve paintings by the English artist Joseph Highmore, produced between 1741 and 1743 as the basis for a set of prints. They are free adaptations of scenes from the novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson. They are now divided equally between the National Gallery of Victoria, the Fitzwilliam Museum and Tate Britain.

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The " epistolary way" chosen by Richardson uses the first person narrative technique and provides different individual points of view of the same event, which is fully explored. the characters introduce one another, using letters instead of speech, and the action is made up by a series of "scenes" with no general summary. Another aspect of this literary form is its immediacy: the reader is inplicitly invited to believe that letters are as they read them as they were in the very act of composition.

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The title of this novel is significant in itself: not virtue for itself but for what it brings about, "virtue rewarded". Pamela is a collection of letters written by a virtuous girl to her parents. Her letters record her various moods and feelings as she resists her late mistress's son's attempts at seducing her and gains from him, as a reward, a proposal of marriage which she accept, becoming rich and obtaining the social position that, according to the Puritan bourgeois ideal of the age, was the highest achievement in life.

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The most important difference between novel and sentimental novel concerne the role of reason in the story. Characters in novels are usually self-made and self-reliant men, who strongly believe in the power of reason.

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In sentimental novels the most important themes are connected to the human's emotions and feelings. The feelings are on a higher level in contrast with reason. Writers try to expose their character's emotions in order to make the audience sympathize with them. For example in Richardson's work Pamela, the public feels exactly the same emotions as Pamela's, reading about her difficulties, her internal struggle between love, passion and chastity. Sentimental novels relied on emotional response, both from their readers and characters. They feature scenes of distress and tenderness, and the plot is arranged to advance both emotions and actions. The result is a valorization of "fine feeling," displaying the characters as a model for refined, sensitive emotional effect. The ability to display feelings was thought to show character and experience, and to shape social life and relations.

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The main differences are:

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In a restricted sense the term refers to a widespread European novelistic development of the 18th century, which arose partly in reaction to the austerity and rationalism of the Neoclassical period. The sentimental novel exalted feeling above reason and raised the analysis of emotion to a fine art. In England, Samuel Richardson’s sentimental novel Pamela(1740) was recommended by clergymen as a means of educating the heart. In the 1760s the sentimental novel developed into the “novel of sensibility,” which presented characters possessing a pronounced susceptibility to delicate sensation. Such characters were not only deeply moved by sympathy for their fellow man but also reacted emotionally to the beauty inherent in natural settings and works of art and music.The sentimental novel complemented social trends of the time toward humanism and the heightened value of human life. The literature focused on weaker members of society, such as orphans and condemned criminals, and allowed readers to identify and sympathize with them. This translated to growing sentimentalism within society, and led to social movements calling for change, such as the abolition of the death penalty and of slavery. Instead of the death penalty, popular sentiment called for the rehabilitation of criminals, rather than harsh punishment.Sentimental novels also gave rise to the subgenre of domestic fiction in the early nineteenth century, commonly called conduct novels. The story's hero in domestic fiction is generally set in a domestic world and centers on a woman going through various types of hardship, and who is juxtaposed with either a foolish and passive or a woefully undereducated woman.[8] The contrast between the heroic woman's actions and her foils is meant to draw sympathy to the character's plight and to instruct them about expected conduct of women.

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Samuel Richardson was born in Derbyshire in 1689 of a Puritan commercial middle-class family. When he was 50, he was asked to write a volume of modern letters to be used on various occations by "country readers", who were not educated enough to write by themselves. While working on this volume Richardson had the idea of using the epistolary technique to tell a story he had heard abou the real case of a serving maid whose virtue had been unsuccessfully attacked by unscrupulous man. His masterpieces are Pamela and Clarissa.

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Considered by many literary experts as the first English novel, Pamela was the best-seller of its time. It was read by countless buyers of the novel and was also read in groups. The novel was also integrated into sermons as an exemplar. It was even an early “multimedia” event, producing Pamela-themed cultural artefacts such as prints, paintings, waxworks, a fan, and a set of playing cards decorated with lines from Richardson's works. Given the lax copyright laws at the time, many "unofficial" sequels were written and published without Richardson's consent and there were also several satires. At least one modern critic has stated that the rash of satires can be viewed as a conservative reaction to a novel that called class, social and gender roles into question by asserting that domestic order can be determined not only by socio-economic status but also by moral qualities of mind. The novel was written during a time of great change. The feminist movement was beginning and the perception of women was changing from women as housebound housewives to women as intellectual and independent people. Industrialization resulted in a large increase in the middle class which changed the dynamic of class. Pamela was one of the first pieces of literature to present these changing roles and represent women as moral and intellectual people who are capable of their own thoughts and emotions and not dependent on men. The issue of class ascension is also addressed, as Pamela herself moves through classes during the novel. This drew the attention of many people, and is a large reason why it was received well by others and with high criticism by some.

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In Richardson’s work there is a psychological analysis, missing from most of the previous fiction. The reader is taken inside the minds of the characters and is invited to share their innermost thoughts, feelings and moods. Characters are far from being static and the reader is almost witness of their gradual development. For example, Pamela is a round character. She is practical, passionate, humble with all, but also intolerant of injustice both to herself and to her fellow servants. Richardson’s heroine has youth and charm, considerable self-will and knowledge, together with Christian piety. She professes and venerates truth and defends virtue.

At the same time, also Mr. B. is a round character. He reflects contemporary male superiority and tries to attempt to Pamela’s virtuous life style, but he gradually changes behavior which becomes more mature and responsible.

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Characters:

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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A plate from Pamela's deluxe edition in 1742

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A plate from Pamela's deluxe edition in 1742