Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded is perhaps the most influential novel published in Britain in the eighteenth century. On its first publication in 1740, it became an immediate bestseller. Its epistolary structure, tight plotting and didactic message were praised, imitated, but also criticised and satirised. This new critical edition of Samuel Richardson's first novel features an authoritative text based on the first edition, general and textual introductions, extensive explanatory notes and textual apparatus. Appendices provide bibliographical descriptions of all lifetime editions as well as the editions of 1801 and 1810, Richardson's introduction to the second edition (fully annotated), and the illustrations and Richardson's index from the octavo edition. The publication of this volume heralds the first full scholarly edition of Richardson's complete works, a long-awaited event in eighteenth-century studies.

Praise for the series:'At last we are going to have a definitive edition of Samuel Richardson's works and correspondence, long overdue, for the writer who was the most influential novelist of the eighteenth century. This ambitious project, 25 volumes of his works and his most important literary correspondence - each volume entrusted to a respected scholar - will illuminate all areas of eighteenth-century studies for Richardson's oeuvre lights up the entire century.'

Ruth Perry - Ann Fetter Friedlaender Professor of the Humanities and MacVicar Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Praise for the series:'At last, this most editorially neglected of great writers is getting the treatment that his works and correspondence deserve. Scholars are eager to get their hands on the first volumes of this complete Richardson, with authoritative texts and rich annotation prepared by a world-class team under Keymer and Sabor’s leadership. This new edition marks an epoch in Richardson studies.'

Jane Spencer - Professor of English, University of Exeter

'The entire publication is something of a momentous occasion for readers interested in eighteenth-century literature and the history of the novel.'

Source: The Cambridge Quarterly

‘Any reader who has fully absorbed the terrors of Pamela’s marriage or pursued to the end the intensities of Clarissa will want to read Grandison too, and so will Jane Austen fans curious about the novel said to have been her favorite. What awaits them is a love story fueled by embarrassment, a forerunner to the modern romantic comedy but also a worthy successor to Clarissa, in which the protagonists face situations so abysmally awkward as to require of them heroic feats of tact and moral imagination. That we now have a magisterial scholarly edition in print is cause for celebration.’

Sarah Raff Source: Eighteenth-Century Studies, on The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Samuel Richardson