Pamela

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded was a novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1740. From the name of the heroine, it has developed the meaning of a girl of low degree, who resists temptation and reclaims her would-be seducer.

It is an important novel in literary history because it is one of the first examples of the epistolary form. Although somewhat turgid and less than realistic to the casual reader, it offers a valuable insight into the way women were perceived and expected to behave during the eighteenth century.