This is a book that Eighteenth Century scholars have been waiting for for a long time. The Penguin edition (ed. Pater Sabor, 1980) is useful, but it reprints Richardson's heavily revised text. Here we now have the original 1740 edition which caused so much of a stir on its original publication. It is easy to see why Richardson revised the text, as it does come across as vaguely pornographic - or at least titilating - in places, rather defeating the portrayal of virtue recommended by the book as a whole. It is tedious, overlong, affected and melodramatic, but one cannot deny its place as a major creative step in the birth of the novel and that is why it is important to us today. Keymer's edition serves the original text well, with a suitably thorough introduction and explanatory notes. The appendices, as ever, are little gems in themselves and help to make the package more useful to the scholar, whilst also being of interest to the casual reader. This volume can be seen in many ways as the companion to Keymer's revised Oxford Classics edition of Henry Fielding's 'Joseph Andrews and Shamela'. The connection between the books and their authors is well documented, and it has to be said that one of the joys of getting through this book is to be able to pick up 'Shamela' and 'Joseph Andrews' afterwards - or even John Cleland's 'Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure' ('Fanny Hill') - and enjoy a good laugh at Richardson's expence. That's not to say that the novel doesn't have merits in its own right, though. A fine edition of an historic book and a brave read, but you can't help thinking there's a little something special going on at the same time.
![Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded [with Biographical Introduction]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21l1zefhJ9L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click-small,TopRight,12,-30_AA258_PIkin4,BottomRight,-46,22_AA280_SH20_OU02_.jpg){kind=icon}
