18th Century Culture

Richardson: Product of His Time

18th century parish

All texts are cultural productions, thus the author’s environment will be reflected in his/her text, regardless of the fictional setting and time.  Richardson’s Pamela is certainly a product of its time, from Richardson’s own professional experiences, to generalizations about certain types of people and moral values.  Beyond artistry and what values were assigned to writing as a profession, simple financial need and market etiquette influenced Richardson’s novels.  An analysis of Richardson’s past and texts enables one to understand eighteenth century culture’s influence on fiction during that time. 

Richardson’s novel revolves around five stock characters exhibiting popular values and opinions of the time.  Pamela is young and virtuous, a model for all female readers to follow.  Pamela is supported by a maternal and good hearted Mrs. Jervis, but is abused by an ugly and unnatural Mrs. Jewkes.  All three female characters either fully embody womanly virtues of the eighteenth century, or transgress the boundaries set for their gender.  Pamela is “pretty innocent and artless” while Mrs. Jewkes “has a huge hand, and an arm as thick”; she is in every way unfeminine (152).  Mr. B and Mr. Williams also follow a set description.  Mr. B is a young and wealthy landowner in the “Age of the Squires” (Mowat 49).  Mr. B must be tamed by Pamela so he does not live such an extravagant life, but also has the ability to run the local government and enforce the laws around his country manor (Mowat 55, 49).  Mr. Williams is a parson, indebted to rich families for his living.  Parish clergymen were “beloved” in the eighteenth century, and thus Mr. Williams is Pamela’s willing, but eventually unneeded, savior (Mowat 40-1). 

The unique print culture of the eighteenth century makes Richardson’s works different from other author’s who cannot help but be influenced by their societies.  The era of the “literary dictator” was waning by the time Richardson entered the publishing scene with his own work (Mowat 60).  However, art was still given value about that of simple trade performed by merchants and businesspeople.  A contemporary of Richardson’s criticized him because he was not a true artist, but just a bourgeois man who must work to earn money: “Richardson was ‘nothing but a middle-aged London printer…in no way distinguished’” (Brophy 117).  Richardson was trying to sell texts to a public concerned with the moral affect novels had upon readers.  He garnered approval by writing for the, supposedly, sole purpose of virtuous enhancement and in turn increased his popularity and sales.  Brophy explains one of the first critiques of Pamela: “The novel is praised for its moral instruction…truthfulness is seen as the distinguishing characteristic.  Such praise echoed Richardson’s own aims” (110).  Richardson, in the guise of editor, claims the purpose of Pamela is “to instruct and improve the minds of the YOUTH of both sexes” (31).

Because Richardson was not of the aristocracy, but had to earn his living, many claims of purposeful wordiness have been posited against him.  “The charge of wordiness was to plague Richardson” and a critic of Richardson’s novels suggests in 1754, “Richardson pads his works to increase his profit as a printer (Brophy 112-13).  Paying per word was a common practice during the eighteenth century; this resulted in many novels of unusual length, including Richardson’s Clarissa.  Richardson defended the length of his novels by explaining that the epistolary form, which portrays real life with a moral aim, must by definition be verbose, as writing in the moment takes much description (Brophy 111-12). 

Home | Salisbury Court | Biography | 18th Century Culture | Print Culture | The Pamela Media Event

Richardson and The Middle Class | The Epistolary Novel | Works Cited

Website created by Taylor Cooper, Emilee Johnson, and Jenny Plaster for Professor Tonya Howe

English 335, The 18th Century British Novel: Texts and Contexts, Washington and Lee University