With this edition of Pamela, which will surely become the standard text, we can see more clearly why Richardson's first novel mattered so much.

Thomas Keymer's books include Richardson's Clarissa and the Eighteenth Century Reader and the OWC edition of Fielding's Joseph Andrews and Shamela.

Pamela under the notion of being a virtuous modest girl will be introduced into all families, and when she gets there, what scenes does she represent? Why, a fine young gentleman endeavoring to debauch a beautiful young girl of sixteen. One of the most spectacular successes of the burgeoning literary marketplace of eighteenth-century London, Pamela also marked a defining moment in the emergence of the modern novel. In the words of one contemporary, it divided the world into two.