S3 E5 Gaslighting, Assault...Love?: Pamela by Samuel Richardson

Sonja and Vanessa have read a 500 page novel for you (or a measly 400 pages, depending on which edition you read).  You’re welcome! 

It’s about a 15 year old girl named Pamela, who is the most beautiful woman on earth (according to everyone in the novel), and she’s a servant girl who is “accomplished” (in Pride and Prejudice fashion…even to the extent that everyone marvels at how well she carves a chicken–now that’s an accomplished young lady, dear listeners).  Pamela finds herself the lust-and-later-love object of her decade-older employer, Mr. B—-, and there are comical cross-dressing scenes, hidden letters, mugged parsons, and our “poor, dear Pamela” jumps out of at least one window.

Come along for this entertaining romp through this famous early novel that was the first English BEST SELLER in history, consider the ideas threading through it that are (sadly) still very much with us today, and the surprising prequel vibe it has for Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  Jane Austen might have perfected the enemies-to-lovers plot…but she didn’t invent it, and here’s a book she for sure read.  See what you think!

Along the way, we meet a “scribbling” woman (over a hundred years before Nathaniel Hawthorne coined the expression), link The Breakfast Club to 18th century literature, and Sonja and Vanessa wonder why they didn’t just call the podcast “Idle Sluts in the House.” 

REFERENCES

Dr. Octavia Cox, of Oxford University, has several wonderful educational videos about 18th century literature, and this one on the success of Pamela in 1740 is incredibly informative with helpful visuals.

More information on Dr. Octavia Cox can be found here.

Here is a picture of the original title page of Samuel Richardson’s novel, Pamela.

Here is a picture of the original title page of Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, 1722.

Tate Museum's 4 Paintings by Joseph Highmore of scenes from Pamela, including Mr. B– disguised as a drunk maid sitting in a corner, spying on Pamela as she undresses.

Gaze here upon the portrait of Samuel Richardson that Vanessa printed out and framed to have before us in the studio as the pod was recorded so we remembered to be kind to Sam.