Cover of Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

by Samuel Richardson

First published
1740
Reading level
Easy
Price
Free

About the book

"Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded" by Samuel Richardson is an epistolary novel published in 1740. Through letters and journal entries, fifteen-year-old maidservant Pamela Andrews recounts her employer Mr. B's persistent unwanted advances after his mother's death. Torn between her religious principles and desire for approval, Pamela faces seduction attempts, assaults, and kidnapping as the wealthy landowner pursues her. This groundbreaking work explores virtue, class barriers, and the troubling boundaries between aggression and courtship in eighteenth-century England.

  • Didactic fiction
  • England
  • Epistolary fiction
  • Master and servant
  • Kidnapping victims
  • Virtue

Updated September 2026. Public domain in the USA. Text and summary from Project Gutenberg eBook #6124. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded on Wikipedia.

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