Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded

The publication of this volume heralds the first scholarly edition of Richardson's complete works, a long-awaited event in eighteenth-century studies.

Samuel Richardson (Author), Albert J. Rivero (Edited by)

9780521848954, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 September 2011

664 pages, 15 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 3.6 cm, 1.18 kg

'Any reader who has fully absorbed the terrors of Pamela's marriage or pursued to the end the intensities of Clarissa will want to read Grandison too, and so will Jane Austen fans curious about the novel said to have been her favorite. What awaits them is a love story fueled by embarrassment, a forerunner to the modern romantic comedy but also a worthy successor to Clarissa, in which the protagonists face situations so abysmally awkward as to require of them heroic feats of tact and moral imagination. That we now have a magisterial scholarly edition in print is cause for celebration.' Sarah Raff, Eighteenth-Century Studies, on The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Samuel Richardson

Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded is perhaps the most influential novel published in Britain in the eighteenth century. On its first publication in 1740, it became an immediate bestseller. Its epistolary structure, tight plotting and didactic message were praised, imitated, but also criticised and satirised. This new critical edition of Samuel Richardson's first novel features an authoritative text based on the first edition, general and textual introductions, extensive explanatory notes and textual apparatus. Appendices provide bibliographical descriptions of all lifetime editions as well as the editions of 1801 and 1810, Richardson's introduction to the second edition (fully annotated), and the illustrations and Richardson's index from the octavo edition. The publication of this volume heralds the first full scholarly edition of Richardson's complete works, a long-awaited event in eighteenth-century studies.

General editors' preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
General introduction
Textual introduction
Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded
Explanatory notes
Appendices: I. List of emendations
II. Word-division
III. List of editions
IV. Introduction to the second edition of Pamela (1741)
V. Contents from the octavo edition (1742)
VI. Illustrations from the octavo edition (1742)
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literary studies: general [DSB]