Anti-Pamela and Shamela

336 Pages·2004·2.15 MB·English

by  Eliza Haywood

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ANTI-PAMELA
OR, FEIGN’D INNOCENCE DETECTED
and
AN APOLOGY FOR THE LIFE OF
SHAMELA
MEMOIRSOFMODERNPHILOSOPHERS 1
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ANTI-PAMELA; or,
FEIGN’D INNOCENCE DETECTED
Eliza Haywood
and
AN APOLOGY FOR THE LIFE OF
MRS. SHAMELA ANDREWS
Henry Fielding
edited by Catherine Ingrassia
broadview literary texts
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©2004 Catherine Ingrassia
All rights reserved.The use of any part of this publication reproduced,transmitted in any form
or by any means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise,or stored in a
retrieval system,without prior written consent of the publisher — or in the case of photo-
copying,a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency),One Yonge
Street,Suite 1900,Toronto,Ontario M5E 1E5 — is an infringement of the copyright law.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Haywood,Eliza,1693?–1756
Anti-Pamela,or,Feign’d innocence detected / Eliza Haywood.An apology for the life of
Mrs.Shamela Andrews / Henry Fielding ;edited by Catherine Ingrassia.
(Broadview literary texts)
On cover and half title page:Anti-Pamela and Shamela.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-55111-383-X
1.Richardson,Samuel,1689-1761—Parodies,imitations,etc. 2.Richardson,Samuel,
1689-1761.Pamela. I.Ingrassia,Catherine. II.Fielding,Henry,1707-1754. Apology
for the life of Mrs Shamela Andrews III.Title. IV.Title:Feign’d innocence detected.
V.Title:Anti-Pamela and Shamela. VI.Series.
PR3506.H94A75 2004 823’.508 C2003-906018-7
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Contents
Acknowledgments • 6
Introduction • 7
Eliza Haywood and Henry Fielding:A Brief Chronology • 44
A Note on the Text • 48
A Note on British Money • 50
Anti-Pamela;or,Feign’d Innocence Detected • 51
An Apology for the Life of Mrs.Shamela Andrews • 229
Appendix A:Women’s Work
1.Richard Campbell,from The London Tradesman (1747) • 277
2.Richard Steele,The Spectator no.155 (1711) • 279
3.Samuel Johnson,Idler nos.26 and 29 (1758) • 279
4.Eliza Haywood,from Fantomina;or,Love in a Maze (1724) • 284
5.Samuel Richardson,from Pamela;or,Virtue Rewarded (1740) • 285
6.Eliza Haywood,from A Present for a Servant-Maid (1743) • 288
7.Mary Collier,from “The Woman’s Labour”(1739) • 292
Appendix B:Sexuality
1.Attempted rape scene from Samuel Richardson,Pamela (1740) • 297
2.James Boswell,from The London Journal (1762-63) • 298
3.Daniel Defoe,from Conjugal Lewdness;or,Matrimonial
Whoredom (1727) • 300
4.Richard Steele,from The Spectator no.266 (1712) • 303
Appendix C:Pamela and the Print Trade
1.Title-pages (Pamela,Anti-Pamela,and Mrs.Shamela Andrews) • 304
2.Samuel Richardson,from Pamela (1740) • 307
3.Conyers Middleton,“Dedication”to History of the Life of
Marcus Tullius Cicero (1741) • 315
4.Colley Cibber,from An Apology for the Life of Mr.Colley
Cibber (1740) • 320
Appendix D:Education and Conduct Books
1.Richard Allestree,from The Whole Duty of Man (1658) • 323
2.Lady Sarah Pennington,from An Unfortunate Mother’s Advice
to her Absent Daughters (1761) • 327
3.Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Lady Bute (1753) • 330
Appendix E:Map of London in Anti-Pamela and Shamela • 333
Select Bibliography • 334
LETTERSWRITTENINFRANCE 5
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Acknowledgments
A number of people made the completion of this edition possible.
When I began the project,my then-chair of the Virginia Common-
wealth University English Department,Richard Fine,enabled me to
provide students in my graduate courses with facsimile copies of Anti-
Pamela during the early stages of the editorial process.The responses
from those students were quite informative;particular thanks go to
Ahsan Chowdhury for his insightful commentary. Subsequently, I
taught Anti-Pamela in almost every upper-division and graduate
course I have conducted at VCU in the last two years;the students
carefully read the text and made wonderful suggestions on how to
produce a teachable edition.At Virginia Commonwealth University’s
Medical College of Virginia,Ellen Brock,M.D.,answered my ques-
tions about the gynecological effects of eighteenth-century herbal
abortifacients. Patrick Spedding shared bibliographic information
related to Anti-Pamela,and part of his Bibliography of Eliza Haywood,
then in manuscript.Peter Sabor,who has edited a facsimile edition of
Anti-Pamela,shared his introduction and his special knowledge of the
text. Like all Haywood scholars, I am enormously grateful for the
tremendous work done by Christine Blouch.For research assistance I
thank Matthew Leighty.For valuable commentary on my Introduc-
tion,I thank Paula R.Backscheider,Rachel Carnell,Devoney Loos-
er,and Miles McCrimmon.For constructing the map of the London
spots Syrena frequents,I thank Richard R.Reed.At Broadview Press,
Don Le Pan was unfailingly enthusiastic and Julia Gaunce offered
wonderful editorial advice.I also thank the anonymous reviewers of
the proposal for this edition.
Despite the academic assistance I acknowledge,my real debts are
of a more personal nature.My mother,Roberta Emerson Ingrassia,
provided childcare during an important stage of writing. My hus-
band, Miles McCrimmon, unfailingly supported this project with
good humor, editorial advice, and the ability to manage all things
domestic.
This edition is dedicated to my children Sophia Vita and Paul Pax-
ton McCrimmon who, despite their tender ages, showed great
patience with their mother and the amount of time she spent at her
computer.
6 CONTENTS
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Introduction
One of the eighteenth century’s most popular novels, Samuel
Richardson’s Pamela;or,Virtue Rewardedinitiated a sustained dialogue
between “pro-”and “anti-Pamelists”who published multiple texts
designed both to argue their position and,ideally,to profit from the
interest in all things related to Pamela.1The novel’s November 6,
1740 publication was quickly followed by Shamela (April 4,1741)
and Anti-Pamela(June 16,1741),collected together here for the first
time.An epistolary narrative,Pamela tells the story of a serving girl
who successfully defends her “virtue”from the advances of her sex-
ually aggressive master, Mr. B.Although B. initially thinks Pamela
duplicitous, he is ultimately persuaded in the authenticity of her
virtue largely by her copious letters and extensive journal which,in
a sense,enact that virtue.The “reward”is marriage to B.,a union that
actually casts her in a more conscripted role.Published anonymous-
ly for author Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) who claimed to be
the editor of the collection of letters,the novel was phenomenally
popular and extremely controversial.Certainly,previous novels such
as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe(1719) or Eliza Haywood’s Love in
Excess(1719) suggested the potential readership of the novel as early
as 1719.But Pamela made clear the novel’s cultural possibilities and
financial rewards, and established the respectability of the form.
Pamela amounted to what William Warner terms a “media event.”
The publication of Pamela,according to Warner,cultivated the atten-
tion of buyers/readers and critics as well as a broader sustained cul-
tural “curiosity.” It also triggered imitations, variations in multiple
media,and rewritings of the text such as Shamelaand Anti-Pamela;it
“becomes the focus of critical commentary and interpretation.”
Pamela helped change “the cultural location and meaning of novel
reading.” 2 The book generated excitement about the novel as a
genre and ignited a so-called “Pamela-craze” that invigorated the
already lively print trade.
1 For further discussion of the published responses to Pamela,see Bernard
Kreissman,Pamela-Shamela:astudy of the criticisms,burlesques,parodies and
adaptations of Richardson’s Pamela(Lincoln,NE:U of Nebraska P,1960).
2 William B.Warner,Licensing Entertainment:The Elevation of Novel Reading
in Britain 1684-1750(Berkeley:U of California P,1998) 178,176.See
chapter five,“The PamelaMedia Event,”pp.176-230.
ANTI-PAMELAANDSHAMELA 7
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In the early decades of the eighteenth century,the production of
books and the investment of time and money by readers expanded
tremendously.Readers,whose numbers were swelling,read from a
wide variety of genres,including journalistic texts,devotional texts,
various kinds of conduct books and,of course,fiction.Previously,
the most widely read books included conduct manuals and books of
devotion such as Richard Allestree’s The Whole Duty of Man (1659,
see Appendix D.1).Early prose fiction was consistently greeted with
suspicion and some resistance by moralists who felt such a low genre
dangerously titillated (typically youthful often female) readers,
instilling inappropriate desires and ambitions, and stimulating the
imagination rather than appealing to reason.Simultaneously,there
was a moral strain of fiction, exemplified by the work of writers
such as Penelope Aubin or Elizabeth Singer Rowe,which combined
morality and titillation. It is important to remember, as J. Paul
Hunter reminds us,that “piety was the most acceptable,most per-
suasive,and perhaps most fundamental basis for literacy,”and read-
ing material corresponded accordingly by being “religious in subject
matter,[and] didactic in intent.”1Pamela,which coupled didacticism
with entertainment, began to satisfy some critics because of its
relentless emphasis on virtue and morality.It attempts to shepherd
its readers through the novel’s ostensibly unambiguous moral
instruction.Yet,as Richardson’s critics observed,his didacticism was
cloaked by a sexualized almost prurient tone that created a narrative
tension.Bearing the residue of the amatory fiction of the 1720s that
it both invokes and repudiates,2 Pamela seems to instruct its readers
in morality yet it is consistently punctuated with stolen kisses,an
attempted rape, calculated disguise, and relentless voyeurism.The
responses to Pamela parodied precisely that prurience and the utter
humorlessness that characterize Richardson’s writing.
The two texts in this volume are the most significant responses
1 J.Paul Hunter,Before Novels:The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century
English Fiction(New York:Norton,1990) 83,225.
2 In Licensing Entertainment,William Warner suggests that Richardson “over-
writes”the amatory fiction of the 1720s (typified by Haywood’s work),
drawing on its erotic content but cloaking it with a more overt didacti-
cism.Previously,Margaret Doody noted extensive similarities between
the fiction of Haywood and Richardson,especially in terms of a com-
mon “dialect of sexual passion”(141) and other narrative styles.See A
Natural Passion:A Study of the Novels of Samuel Richardson (Oxford:
Clarendon Press,1974) 137-150.
8 INTRODUCTION
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to Richardson’s fiction. Although distinctly different in their
approach,both question his representation of class and work,both
interrogate the generic expectations he establishes,and both punc-
ture his representation of sexuality (most potently embodied by
Pamela’s “virtue”).They also,implicitly,engage in a discussion about
what the novel should be and how readers should be treated.
Shamela,Henry Fielding’s (1707-1754) satiric response,anticipates
the kind of hybrid—the “comic Epic-Poem in Prose”—that he mas-
tered in Joseph Andrews(1742) and Tom Jones (1749).(It is easy to for-
get that Shamela, like Pamela, is a first novel.) As J. Paul Hunter
observes,Shamela“suggests the expanded possibilities he would find
in prose fiction.”1 Shamela purports to provide the “true”letters of
the real Pamela,who is revealed to be a “sham”who feigns “vartue”
in order to mislead and ultimately ensnare the witless Booby.Broad-
ly comic and incisively satiric,Shamelareveals the absurdity of certain
aspects of Richardson’s narrative as it offers linguistically playful and
more accurate substitutions for his language.Fielding does not aban-
don instruction for entertainment;he is,in many ways,more shrewd-
ly insightful into the potential consequences of individual ambition
and desire and the dangers of cultural debasement.But his prose is
the antithesis of Richardson’s overt and relentlessly earnest instruc-
tion.Drawing both on his theatrical background and his experience
in writing political pamphlets,Fielding maintains a distinctive,know-
ingly topical voice that punctures the absurdities of Richardson’s fic-
tion and a culture that embraced it so fully.Fielding trusts his reader
to understand the joke and the cultural implications of the texts they
read.Shamela foregrounds the narrative,stylistic,and ideological dif-
ferences between Richardson and Fielding,two writers who were
often characterized as manifesting a “feminine” and “masculine”
sensibility,respectively.It claims a specific kind of literary territory
for Fielding,as he capitalizes in a financial sense on Pamela’s popu-
larity while creating a new position for himself as a comic novelist
within the marketplace.2
1 J.Paul Hunter,Occasional Form:Henry Fielding and the Chains of Circum-
stance (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UP,1975) 77.
2 As Allen Michie details in Richardson and Fielding:The Dynamics of a Criti-
cal Rivalry(Lewisburg:Bucknell UP,1999),Fielding and Richardson have
been read in tandem as representing distinct—and opposing directions—
in eighteenth-century fiction.Their own contemporaries,like literary
critics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,perpetuated a kind of
intellectual rivalry that defined not just the two authors,but also the
eighteenth-century literary landscape as a whole.
ANTI-PAMELAANDSHAMELA 9
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An experienced author with more than fifty-four publications
to her name, Eliza Haywood (1693?-1756) also recognized the
marketability of a response to Pamela.Like Fielding,she was moti-
vated in part by financial interest,and she too satirizes Richardson’s
tone and representation of a serving girl.But Haywood’s novel is a
fully developed narrative that responds to Richardson on its way to
offering some lessons—and entertainment—of its own.Her “anti-
Pamela,”Syrena Tricksy,tries to profit financially from the men she
encounters as she works in various professions in London.
“[T]rain’d up to deceive and betray all those whom her Beauty
should allure,”Syrena is devoid of any emotional attachments and
focuses purely on financial gain in relationships with multiple men.
The only “virtue”Syrena is concerned with is the one she feigns.
Anti-Pamela provides an interesting contrast to the other two texts.
Traditionally read in the shadow of the contemporaneous satire,
Shamela,Anti-Pamela’s engagement with Richardson and the liter-
ary marketplace has been largely ignored and the text has not pre-
viously appeared in an edited modern edition.1
Yet Haywood’s text is an interesting mix of Richardson and
Fielding. Like Richardson, Haywood’s prose is informed by the
amatory fiction of the 1720s (a genre largely shaped by her earlier
fiction), though here in satiric guise—it represents a woman’s
attempts to gain a measure of economic success and personal
autonomy in a culture marked by a regulatory economy of sexual-
ity.Haywood realizes that many of her readers,schooled in her ear-
lier fiction,are resistant to the romantic conclusions of Richardson’s
text either because of their familiarity with the genre or because of
their own life experience.As readers became savvier about the nar-
rative codes, Haywood found it necessary to defy expectations.
Haywood’s narrative persona engages the reader directly, often
through sustained asides,to comment on Syrena’s actions,the cul-
tural milieu or the novel as a genre.In that way,Anti-Pamela pro-
vides instruction (if only through negative example) and anticipates
other didactic texts Haywood subsequently wrote, partially in
response to the new demand for moralistic fiction.Although Anti-
Pamela satirizes some specific aspects of Pamela,its greater concern
1 While Anti-Pamelahas appeared in two modern facsimile editions (New
York:Garland,1975),and The Pamela Controversy:Criticisms and Adapta-
tions of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela,1740-1750in 6 Volumes,edited by
Thomas Keymer and Peter Sabor,Volume 2 (London:Pickering and
Chatto,2001),a modern edition has never been published until now.
10 INTRODUCTION