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1. Samuel Richardson
(1689-1761)
Life
Son of a Derbyshire
joiner, Richardson dreamed to be a missionary in his chil dhood.
However, the family was not able to afford his education. In 1760, the young
man came to London and was apprenticed to a printer, whose daughter he later
married. During this time, Richardson taught himself. Then he set up his own
printing business. Soon he was a printer of the Journals of the House of
Commons, Master of Stationer’s Company and Law Printer to the King. By the
time he was 50, he had become a very prosperous and respectable printer
bookseller in London.
Though not a cultured man, Richardson was known
for his skill in letter writing even in his early youth and was frequently
employed by the girls of the neighborhood to write love letters for them.
But for all his readiness with his pen, people, even himself, never dreamed
that he might one day become a famous and influential novelist.
In 1739, Richardson was asked by two booksellers to
compile a volume of model letters for people without much formal education,
which was named “Letters Written to and for Particular Friends on the Most
Important Occasions”. This little volume inspired Richardson to start novel
writing. He intended that his manual should not only teach people how to
write letters but also be moral. Then the accidental beginning of his
literary career came. He was duly rewarded for his kindness and the pain he
had taken for the writing of such moving letters. Pamela came out in
installments from 1740 to1741 and it was a great success. Each issue was
eagerly followed by an enthusiastic public, read by the fireside and at
church. In1747 appeared Clarissa Harlowe and five years late Sir
Charles Grandison (1753-1754). These three long works won the author a
reputation in his own country and on the Continent, and fundamentally
altered the course of the English fiction.
On 4 July 1761, Richardson died in London, as a content
businessman and successful novelist, and buried beside his publishing house.
Pamela
This story is told in a series of letters written by
the heroine Pamela Andrews to her parents and her two fiends. The novel
begins with the death of the mistress of the B. household, leaving her
servant Pamela concerned about her future. From the opening sentences we
learn that Pamela is an exceptional young woman in exceptional
circumstances. As a favorite of her mistress, Pamela has been moderately
educated in writing, keeping accounts and needlework, and feels that such
supposed advantages disadvantage her in the female labor in which such
skills are largely superfluous. However, her mistress's son Mr. B. decides
to keep Pamela on in service, with special designs to seduce her. The
inappropriate behaviors of Mr. B, such as giving the young woman such items
as fine cambric aprons, a silk gown and stockings, cause Pamela
embarrassment, , and even raises her parents' fears that their daughter’s
virtue is in danger. Pamela constantly spies upon and conspires against Mr.
B’s designs no matter happened in Mr. B.’s family home or in the
Lincolnshire estate. Finally, Mr. B’s desire to know Pamela's true character
is stronger than his physical desire for her. Therefore, the end of the
novel is Mr. B.’s proposal to Pamela and their marriage. Then Richardson
wrote other two-volumes, which is a lesser-known and less loved continuation
to the novel, known as Pamela II published in 1741. Pamela II
is heavily disadvantaged by its lack of plot. Beginning, with a newly
married couple, the novel traces the life and domestic concerns of Mr. B.
and Pamela, including Pamela’s efforts to reform her profligate husband, the
behaviors of their servants and the education of their children. Written
largely as a defense of the original work, the characters in Pamela II
become little more than models of various forms of moral behavior rather
than the active protagonists. Therefore, Pamela II is considered as a
somewhat pompous and crude prototype for Richardson's later work.
The novel mainly concerns with issues of marriage, morality,
virtue, love and the restraints that social status impose upon individual
behavior and subjectivity. Just as the Preface outlines, the text’s purpose
is “to Divert and Entertain, and at the same time to Instruct, and Improve
the Minds of the YOUTH of both Sexes”. The heroin Pamela is Richardson’s
exemplar of being a virgin to educate women while Mr. B is the negative
model to those profligate rich men. Thought Pamela comes from the low, she
is pure, innocent, and virtuous and tries her best to protect herself from
Mr. B’s insults. The following excerpt is taken from Letter XI. in which
Pamela tells her parents how Mr. B offends her and how she protects herself.
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