Pamela, Samuel Richardson’s tale of a beautiful teenage servant-girl protecting her virtue from the amorous advances of her master, created a furore on its publication in 1740. The reading public was split into two factions: those who accepted the story as an encouragement to virtuous behaviour, and those who saw it as disguised pornography. Written in the form of a series of letters from Pamela to her parents, Pamela is a landmark in the development of the English novel.
