Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela

Downloads: Under 100
Pages: 45

Read PDF online Download Save

About this book

The prefaces and letters surrounding Pamela offer a close view of how Samuel Richardson presented his novel to its earliest readers. This edition brings together his introduction and the responses he included with it, using the second edition as its base and marking changes made in later editions. Sheridan W. Baker, Jr. supplies an editorial introduction that traces those revisions and identifies the people behind the letters.

Among the voices gathered here are readers who praise the novel's characters, moral lessons, and use of letters and journals. Their enthusiastic judgments sit beside Baker's account of Richardson's editorial choices, giving readers material for considering the relationship between a book and its early reception. The volume suits an interest in literary criticism, the history of publishing, or the ways an author shapes the public presentation of a work.

About the author

Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was an English printer who came to fiction late, publishing his first novel at fifty. His epistolary works Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison shaped the early English novel and made him one of the most influential writers of the eighteenth century.