The Augustan Reprint Society

PAMELA CENSURED

(1741)

Introduction by

Charles Batten, Jr.

Publication Number 175

WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
University of California, Los Angeles
1976

GENERAL EDITORS

William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles
Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles
David S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles

ADVISORY EDITORS

James L. Clifford, Columbia University
Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia
Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles
Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
Earl Miner, Princeton University
Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota
Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles
Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
James Sutherland, University College, London
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles
Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Beverly J. Onley, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

[Pg i]

INTRODUCTION

The publication of Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded on 6 November 1740occasioned the kind of immediate and hyperbolic praise which would haveturned the head of an author less vain than Richardson. Proclaimed byAaron Hill as being "the Soul of Religion," and by Knightley Chetwood asthe book next to the Bible which ought to be saved "if all the Books inEngland were to be burnt," Pamela seemed certain of universal acclaim,especially when the Reverend Benjamin Slocock praised it extravagantlyfrom the pulpit of St. Saviour's in Southwark within two months of itsinitial printing. Even the "Objections" voiced by several correspondentsand published at the beginning of the second edition of Pamela (14February 1741) seemed relatively inconsequential when weighed againstthe Gentleman's Magazine's assertion in January 1741 that everyLondoner with the slightest curiosity was reading Pamela.[1]

Literary and moral opposition to Pamela gradually began to mount,however. April 1741 saw the publication of the first and perhaps mostperceptive attacks on Richardson's novel: An Apology for the Life ofMrs. Shamela Andrews appeared on 2 April, followed by Pamela Censured:In a Letter to the Editor some twenty-three days later. While we nowfeel certain that Henry Fielding wrote Shamela, the author of PamelaCensured has eluded us.[2] Though both works attack Pamela on moralgrounds and incide

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