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Anti-Pamela and Shamela
Published together for the first time, Eliza Haywood's Anti-Pamela and Henry Fielding's An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews are the two most important responses to Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela. Anti-Pamela comments on Richardson's representations of work, virtue, and gender, while also questioning the generic expectations of the novel that Pamela establishes, and it provides a vivid portrayal of the material realities of life for a woman in eighteenth-century London. Fielding's Shamela punctures both the figure Richardson established for himself as an author and Pamela's preoccupation with virtue.
This Broadview edition also includes a rich selection of historical materials, including writings from the period on sexuality, women's work, Pamela and the print trade, and education and conduct.
This Broadview edition also includes a rich selection of historical materials, including writings from the period on sexuality, women's work, Pamela and the print trade, and education and conduct.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1741
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About the author
Eliza Fowler Haywood
153 books60 followersEliza Haywood (1693 – 1756), born Elizabeth Fowler, was an English writer, actress and publisher. Since the 1980s, Eliza Haywood’s literary works have been gaining in recognition and interest. Described as “prolific even by the standards of a prolific age” (Blouch, intro 7), Haywood wrote and published over seventy works during her lifetime including fiction, drama, translations, poetry, conduct literature and periodicals. Haywood is a significant figure of the 18th century as one of the important founders of the novel in English. Today she is studied primarily as a novelist.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
February 17, 2025
für die Uni; Modul "Vergleichende Literaturgeschichte"
Viiiiiele gemischte Gefühle.
"Anti-Pamela" beginnt deutlich weniger langatmig als "Pamela" und die Protagonistin Syrena ist aktiver, selbstbestimmter als Pamela. Es hat mich beeindruckt, wie sie ihr sexuelles Verlangen auslebt und auch mit Männern schläft, die sie einfach hot findet. (Und nicht nur, weil sie finanzielle Vorteile haben will.)
Die Erzählstimme nimmt das natürlich (leider) nicht als sexuelle Entfaltung wahr, sondern kritisiert Syrenas unmoralisches, böses Verhalten. Ein Urteil, mit dem viele Frauen heutzutage noch konfrontiert werden, wenn sie mit vielen Männern schlafen. (Wovon Männer, die mit vielen Frauen schlafen, heute wie damals natürlich frei bleiben.)
Sie zieht aber auch Sachen ab, die wirklich scheiße und irgendwie bösartig sind, zum Beispiel einem unschuldigen Mann eine Vergewaltigung anzuhängen. Ein Narrativ, mit dem Frauen heutzutage kämpfen, wenn sie sich gegen tatsächliche Täter aussprechen. Hier stellt die Erzählstimme Syrena als eindeutige Täterin hin und die Männer, die sie abzieht, als Opfer — ohne zu differenzieren, dass Syrena auch ein Opfer ist. Das unangebrachte und übergriffige Verhalten der Männer Syrena gegenüber wird von der Erzählstimme nämlich nicht kritisch eingeordnet und wirkt dadurch eher normalisiert.
Was anfangs noch abwechslungsreich wirkt, wird bald ermüdend. Syrena lernt einen Mann kennen, versucht ihn an sich zu binden und scheitert. Und dann wieder von vorne. Es ist sehr frustrierend, dass sie nie Erfolg hat. Damit hat "Anti-Pamela" schlussendlich auch dieselbe Moral wie "Pamela": Nur wenn du tugendhaft bist, kommst du an dein Ziel (reich heiraten). Syrena ist nicht tugendhaft und kommt nicht an ihr Ziel. Irgendwie denke ich, es wäre passender für eine Parodie gewesen, wenn Syrena es doch noch geschafft hätte, untugendhaft ans Ziel zu kommen. Irgendwie hätte ich es ihr auch gegönnt.
Viiiiiele gemischte Gefühle.
"Anti-Pamela" beginnt deutlich weniger langatmig als "Pamela" und die Protagonistin Syrena ist aktiver, selbstbestimmter als Pamela. Es hat mich beeindruckt, wie sie ihr sexuelles Verlangen auslebt und auch mit Männern schläft, die sie einfach hot findet. (Und nicht nur, weil sie finanzielle Vorteile haben will.)
Die Erzählstimme nimmt das natürlich (leider) nicht als sexuelle Entfaltung wahr, sondern kritisiert Syrenas unmoralisches, böses Verhalten. Ein Urteil, mit dem viele Frauen heutzutage noch konfrontiert werden, wenn sie mit vielen Männern schlafen. (Wovon Männer, die mit vielen Frauen schlafen, heute wie damals natürlich frei bleiben.)
Sie zieht aber auch Sachen ab, die wirklich scheiße und irgendwie bösartig sind, zum Beispiel einem unschuldigen Mann eine Vergewaltigung anzuhängen. Ein Narrativ, mit dem Frauen heutzutage kämpfen, wenn sie sich gegen tatsächliche Täter aussprechen. Hier stellt die Erzählstimme Syrena als eindeutige Täterin hin und die Männer, die sie abzieht, als Opfer — ohne zu differenzieren, dass Syrena auch ein Opfer ist. Das unangebrachte und übergriffige Verhalten der Männer Syrena gegenüber wird von der Erzählstimme nämlich nicht kritisch eingeordnet und wirkt dadurch eher normalisiert.
Was anfangs noch abwechslungsreich wirkt, wird bald ermüdend. Syrena lernt einen Mann kennen, versucht ihn an sich zu binden und scheitert. Und dann wieder von vorne. Es ist sehr frustrierend, dass sie nie Erfolg hat. Damit hat "Anti-Pamela" schlussendlich auch dieselbe Moral wie "Pamela": Nur wenn du tugendhaft bist, kommst du an dein Ziel (reich heiraten). Syrena ist nicht tugendhaft und kommt nicht an ihr Ziel. Irgendwie denke ich, es wäre passender für eine Parodie gewesen, wenn Syrena es doch noch geschafft hätte, untugendhaft ans Ziel zu kommen. Irgendwie hätte ich es ihr auch gegönnt.
March 30, 2009
Reading Anti-Pamela and Shamela not only heightened my enjoyment of Pamela, the book they both parody, but also helped to triangulate a better understanding of 18th century attitudes regarding women and class. For example, after reading Anti-Pamela especially, Pamela seemed to me to be book with a more progressive attitude, since it allowed for the idea of a lower class woman having virtues that could be outraged. In both of the parodies, the expectation seemed to be that different classes required different moral standards (the lower classes having "naturally" lower standards), which helps to understand why it would have been difficult for Mr. B to understand he was doing was doing Pamela a real injury. In fact, he never really does, because the only way he can resolve the paradox of a virtuous maid is to raise Pamela's class by marrying her.
Pamela's insistence upon her right to virtue, combined with evidence of better education, information, speech, and manners than would have been typical of a woman of her class--not to mention the class-transforming happy ending--make me think of Pamela as half moral guide and half aspirational fantasy that must have been attractive to people in newly literate classes. Read in this way, the premise of the parodies--Pamela's virtue is a self-serving sham--is more nearly true.
Pamela's insistence upon her right to virtue, combined with evidence of better education, information, speech, and manners than would have been typical of a woman of her class--not to mention the class-transforming happy ending--make me think of Pamela as half moral guide and half aspirational fantasy that must have been attractive to people in newly literate classes. Read in this way, the premise of the parodies--Pamela's virtue is a self-serving sham--is more nearly true.
December 14, 2022
You don't need to have read Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded to enjoy this book, but it certainly adds to the overall enjoyment. These 2 stories satirize the innocence of the character of Pamela Andrews.
The novella An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews by Henry Fielding, replaces Pamela with a lascivious creature and former prostitute, Shamela, scheming to entrap her master, Squire Booby, into marriage. This story is light, funny and filled with curses. It makes me wish Pamela were really this conniving.
Eliza Haywood's The Anti-Pamela; or Feign’d Innocence Detected gives Pamela a new name and Syrena, who is a failed social climber, a mistress to several men. I wish there were more humor and less talk of STD, but I think of it as an adventure book and less of a satire.
The novella An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews by Henry Fielding, replaces Pamela with a lascivious creature and former prostitute, Shamela, scheming to entrap her master, Squire Booby, into marriage. This story is light, funny and filled with curses. It makes me wish Pamela were really this conniving.
Eliza Haywood's The Anti-Pamela; or Feign’d Innocence Detected gives Pamela a new name and Syrena, who is a failed social climber, a mistress to several men. I wish there were more humor and less talk of STD, but I think of it as an adventure book and less of a satire.
February 19, 2008
after reading what seems like five million pages on the virtuous pamela running away from mr. b who wants nothing more than to stick it in her (but in the end reforms and decides to give her a ring before he sticks it in her... ah, romance), reading anti-pamela and shamela made me feel so, so much better.
September 29, 2020
The Anti-Pamela; or, Feign'd Innocence Detected came out a year after Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded and a month after An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews and unlike the other two books, was not a debut novel but one by established novelist, Eliza Haywood.
Unlike Shamela, it is not a direct parody but seems more a response, Haywood is trying to show how a proper novelist deals with the same films. As such, Anti-Pamela shows the flaws in Pamela by comparison, but inadvertently shows the strengths of Pamela when compared to Anti-Pamela. As such, the book is not in itself anti Pamela, but that the main character, Syrena is herself the opposite of Pamela.
Much like Pamela, Syrena is heavily influenced by her upbringing. Pamela’s parents are near saintly, but Syrena is raised by a mother who trains her beautiful daughter to find the best ‘deal’ with her beauty. For Pamela, being ‘ruined’ is losing her virginity but for Syrena, being ‘ruined’ is losing her virginity without a decent cash payoff. In many ways, the best relationship is between this mother, who wants the best for her daughter as she sees it and Syrena, who isn’t mature enough to put the mother’s lessons properly into practise.
Unlike Pamela, Anti-Pamela doesn’t focus on one situation in a claustrophobic house but moves from one ‘adventure’ (a word with sexual overtones in the eighteenth century) to another. In the first, Syrena, who has been bred up to ‘bag’ a rich man, is languishing as an apprentice in a small dressmakers. On a trip to buy lace, she meets a man in a brocaded hat who offers to buy her stockings and there’s sexual tension with the nature of the purchase. Falsehood being ingrained in her she, pretends to ‘seem coy, but such a coyness to give him room to fancy I might at last be won.” The man quickly seduces her, much to her mother’s dismay as he wasn’t sufficiently rich. She has to move back to her mother’s and has “an abortion to the great joy of mother and daughter.”
The second adventure is the closest to Pamela, as Syrena becomes the maid to an elderly lady and both the father and the son latch on her instantly. It’s clear that she is seen as sexually available to the men of the family and is her job to manipulate both men and decide which will give her the best deal, as the elder’s mistress or the younger’s wife. There’s a greater sense of the workings of the household and her place within it; all clearly shown by the geography in the house and the timetable of the servants. There was a wonderful sense of what is was like to be one of the higher servants in a house, especially how many of the higher servants are largely decorative and have little to do, which makes them easier to get alone. At one point, the younger man waits in the old lady’s cupboard for three hours waiting for her. The end of this adventure shows how Syrena and her mother have no compunction in ruining people’s lives. They set up a fake-rape and accuse the son of perpetrating it, he even goes to prison. The aim is to drop the charges in return for marriage, with Syrena having no worry about marrying a man who hates her in return for money. However, the discovery of the mother’s letters to Syrena undoes their plan and they have to go in hiding in Greenwich.
The book then goes through another series of adventures and each one works for a while but is ultimately unsuccessful which limits future pickings. Things get more desperate as Syrena’s total head-turning beauty has a very small window. She’s not even 17 by the end of the book.
At one point, Syrena leaves her mum after argument in which Syrena wants to be more sexual in her advances as the coy-game is taking too long. She becomes the kept woman of a tradesman who almost bankrupts his family for her but also falls in love with a handsome man who uses her for money as she uses the tradesman.
Finally, she falls in love with an elderly man and ‘lets’ him talk her into marriage. Syrena’s mother says that he’s their best bet as only an elderly man would choose to marry his maid. The wedding is almost prepared and the night before it, she is introduced to the old man’s son. To her horror, the son is the handsome man who had previously used her. Again, her plans are foiled by her own indiscretions and she is packed up to be isolated in Wales.
Although there were letters in the book, it was not out-and-out epistolary, with the adventures linked together and occasionally told by a narrator. This narrator means the book doesn’t keep circling the same ideas again and again and gets the story moving. As such, the biggest implied criticism Anti-Pamela makes of Pamela is that it is too stuck in one place, containing too little incident. However, the accumulation of incident does mean that we don’t live in the character’s minds to the same extent, while I may not be Pamela’s biggest fan, Anti-Pamela does show a new direction that novels could, and did take.
Shamela was Henry Fielding’s first foray into prose fiction and was published a year after Pamela. Richardson’s book caused a great deal of media attention and readers quickly found themselves in opposing camps, the Pamelaists and the Anti-Pamelaists, similar to how big films sometimes split audiences in two.
Henry Fielding was definitely an Anti-Pamelaist and wrote Shamela as a direct parody. Before he gets to slamming Pamela, he has a few other targets first. The first being one of his favourite targets, Colley Cibber. The full title of the book being An Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews, a little jab at Colley Cibber’s almost identical title for his theatrical memoirs (which hardly mentions sometime collaborator, Henry Fielding).
Next is the dedication, which is a parody of one Conyers Middleton wrote to Lord Hervey in a biography of Cicero. My copy of Shamela includes the parodied text and it is spot on, striking the same note of insipid flattery. It also includes a number of references to wanking, I liked his description of editing as ‘tickling the text with my own pencil’.
With these targets out of the way, we move onto the proper target, Pamela itself. He starts with parodying the media-blitz of the book, writing a letter of recommendation for the book by himself and signed;
“Sincerely your well-wisher, myself.”
This is followed by piss-take of Aaron Hill’s puff with absurdist, overelaborate praise which declares that Pamela is such a moral book that it can easily replace every other form of religion and moral teaching. These are mixed with genuine quotes from the Aaron Hill letters, making his own praises for Pamela seem as over-the-top as the fake parts. The recipient sends the ‘true’ story of Shamela to correct the lies in Pamela.
Fielding leaps right into the central instability of Pamela, that someone constructing a text as carefully as she does, is not constructing her own identity with as much carefulness. As such, Shamela is always acting a part.
The plot itself follows the first half of Pamela almost exactly. Shamela is a maid in Mr B’s house and quickly realises that he lusts after her and decides to play the ‘vartuous’ woman in order to bag a better deal. The conflict in the book doesn’t come from Mr B trying to force himself on Shamela, but in Shamela trying to manipulate him into marriage and not give away her real self. In the mirror of the principal rape scene in Pamela, Shamela tries desperately not to laugh at his clumsy attempts.
My favourite element was his take on Mr B, he picked up on the problem I had with him, that Mr B is a terrible seducer. He’s portrayed as being so charmless that he can’t connect with a woman by groping them. Shamela find him such a competent lover that she has trouble convincingly pretending to fall in love with him.
“Sure no man ever took such a method to gain a woman’s heart.”
Mr Edwards, who is Pamela’s confidant, becomes Shamela’s secret lover. He’s a conniving Methodist and sees good religion as nothing more than reading good books and singing psalms. Being a Methodist, he doesn’t see the goodness of his actions having anything to do with Jesus’s salvation. He can commit as many crimes as he wishes, as long as he truly believes.
Fielding also has a number of jabs at how long and padded Pamela is. At one point she says that her and Mrs Jewkes “talked of my vartue till dinnertime”, a perfect sum up of what much of what reading Pamela is like. The seemingly eternal scenes of Pamela giving gifts to servants is reduced to the phrase ‘&c.’
Fielding also skips most of the second half of Pamela is not represented by Shamela as the letter was lost, which I found a shame because I wanted to read his interpretation of the Lady Davers scene and his take on the married Mr B’s pretentious moralising.
I had great fun with Shamela finding it a perfect tonic to Pamela but it is a pretty ephemeral work, a fun little cash-grab that would unexpectedly develop into one of my favourite novelistic careers.
(On a little note about my copy, I had the Broadview edition edited by Catherine Ingressia, which also included Shamela. For the most part, I found it a brilliant edition but I was rather irritated by the footnotes. It had the American ‘thing’ of describing well-known London locations but it also explained very common phrases as if they were something strange and archaic. Do people really not understand what ‘fast and loose’ means?)
Unlike Shamela, it is not a direct parody but seems more a response, Haywood is trying to show how a proper novelist deals with the same films. As such, Anti-Pamela shows the flaws in Pamela by comparison, but inadvertently shows the strengths of Pamela when compared to Anti-Pamela. As such, the book is not in itself anti Pamela, but that the main character, Syrena is herself the opposite of Pamela.
Much like Pamela, Syrena is heavily influenced by her upbringing. Pamela’s parents are near saintly, but Syrena is raised by a mother who trains her beautiful daughter to find the best ‘deal’ with her beauty. For Pamela, being ‘ruined’ is losing her virginity but for Syrena, being ‘ruined’ is losing her virginity without a decent cash payoff. In many ways, the best relationship is between this mother, who wants the best for her daughter as she sees it and Syrena, who isn’t mature enough to put the mother’s lessons properly into practise.
Unlike Pamela, Anti-Pamela doesn’t focus on one situation in a claustrophobic house but moves from one ‘adventure’ (a word with sexual overtones in the eighteenth century) to another. In the first, Syrena, who has been bred up to ‘bag’ a rich man, is languishing as an apprentice in a small dressmakers. On a trip to buy lace, she meets a man in a brocaded hat who offers to buy her stockings and there’s sexual tension with the nature of the purchase. Falsehood being ingrained in her she, pretends to ‘seem coy, but such a coyness to give him room to fancy I might at last be won.” The man quickly seduces her, much to her mother’s dismay as he wasn’t sufficiently rich. She has to move back to her mother’s and has “an abortion to the great joy of mother and daughter.”
The second adventure is the closest to Pamela, as Syrena becomes the maid to an elderly lady and both the father and the son latch on her instantly. It’s clear that she is seen as sexually available to the men of the family and is her job to manipulate both men and decide which will give her the best deal, as the elder’s mistress or the younger’s wife. There’s a greater sense of the workings of the household and her place within it; all clearly shown by the geography in the house and the timetable of the servants. There was a wonderful sense of what is was like to be one of the higher servants in a house, especially how many of the higher servants are largely decorative and have little to do, which makes them easier to get alone. At one point, the younger man waits in the old lady’s cupboard for three hours waiting for her. The end of this adventure shows how Syrena and her mother have no compunction in ruining people’s lives. They set up a fake-rape and accuse the son of perpetrating it, he even goes to prison. The aim is to drop the charges in return for marriage, with Syrena having no worry about marrying a man who hates her in return for money. However, the discovery of the mother’s letters to Syrena undoes their plan and they have to go in hiding in Greenwich.
The book then goes through another series of adventures and each one works for a while but is ultimately unsuccessful which limits future pickings. Things get more desperate as Syrena’s total head-turning beauty has a very small window. She’s not even 17 by the end of the book.
At one point, Syrena leaves her mum after argument in which Syrena wants to be more sexual in her advances as the coy-game is taking too long. She becomes the kept woman of a tradesman who almost bankrupts his family for her but also falls in love with a handsome man who uses her for money as she uses the tradesman.
Finally, she falls in love with an elderly man and ‘lets’ him talk her into marriage. Syrena’s mother says that he’s their best bet as only an elderly man would choose to marry his maid. The wedding is almost prepared and the night before it, she is introduced to the old man’s son. To her horror, the son is the handsome man who had previously used her. Again, her plans are foiled by her own indiscretions and she is packed up to be isolated in Wales.
Although there were letters in the book, it was not out-and-out epistolary, with the adventures linked together and occasionally told by a narrator. This narrator means the book doesn’t keep circling the same ideas again and again and gets the story moving. As such, the biggest implied criticism Anti-Pamela makes of Pamela is that it is too stuck in one place, containing too little incident. However, the accumulation of incident does mean that we don’t live in the character’s minds to the same extent, while I may not be Pamela’s biggest fan, Anti-Pamela does show a new direction that novels could, and did take.
Shamela was Henry Fielding’s first foray into prose fiction and was published a year after Pamela. Richardson’s book caused a great deal of media attention and readers quickly found themselves in opposing camps, the Pamelaists and the Anti-Pamelaists, similar to how big films sometimes split audiences in two.
Henry Fielding was definitely an Anti-Pamelaist and wrote Shamela as a direct parody. Before he gets to slamming Pamela, he has a few other targets first. The first being one of his favourite targets, Colley Cibber. The full title of the book being An Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews, a little jab at Colley Cibber’s almost identical title for his theatrical memoirs (which hardly mentions sometime collaborator, Henry Fielding).
Next is the dedication, which is a parody of one Conyers Middleton wrote to Lord Hervey in a biography of Cicero. My copy of Shamela includes the parodied text and it is spot on, striking the same note of insipid flattery. It also includes a number of references to wanking, I liked his description of editing as ‘tickling the text with my own pencil’.
With these targets out of the way, we move onto the proper target, Pamela itself. He starts with parodying the media-blitz of the book, writing a letter of recommendation for the book by himself and signed;
“Sincerely your well-wisher, myself.”
This is followed by piss-take of Aaron Hill’s puff with absurdist, overelaborate praise which declares that Pamela is such a moral book that it can easily replace every other form of religion and moral teaching. These are mixed with genuine quotes from the Aaron Hill letters, making his own praises for Pamela seem as over-the-top as the fake parts. The recipient sends the ‘true’ story of Shamela to correct the lies in Pamela.
Fielding leaps right into the central instability of Pamela, that someone constructing a text as carefully as she does, is not constructing her own identity with as much carefulness. As such, Shamela is always acting a part.
The plot itself follows the first half of Pamela almost exactly. Shamela is a maid in Mr B’s house and quickly realises that he lusts after her and decides to play the ‘vartuous’ woman in order to bag a better deal. The conflict in the book doesn’t come from Mr B trying to force himself on Shamela, but in Shamela trying to manipulate him into marriage and not give away her real self. In the mirror of the principal rape scene in Pamela, Shamela tries desperately not to laugh at his clumsy attempts.
My favourite element was his take on Mr B, he picked up on the problem I had with him, that Mr B is a terrible seducer. He’s portrayed as being so charmless that he can’t connect with a woman by groping them. Shamela find him such a competent lover that she has trouble convincingly pretending to fall in love with him.
“Sure no man ever took such a method to gain a woman’s heart.”
Mr Edwards, who is Pamela’s confidant, becomes Shamela’s secret lover. He’s a conniving Methodist and sees good religion as nothing more than reading good books and singing psalms. Being a Methodist, he doesn’t see the goodness of his actions having anything to do with Jesus’s salvation. He can commit as many crimes as he wishes, as long as he truly believes.
Fielding also has a number of jabs at how long and padded Pamela is. At one point she says that her and Mrs Jewkes “talked of my vartue till dinnertime”, a perfect sum up of what much of what reading Pamela is like. The seemingly eternal scenes of Pamela giving gifts to servants is reduced to the phrase ‘&c.’
Fielding also skips most of the second half of Pamela is not represented by Shamela as the letter was lost, which I found a shame because I wanted to read his interpretation of the Lady Davers scene and his take on the married Mr B’s pretentious moralising.
I had great fun with Shamela finding it a perfect tonic to Pamela but it is a pretty ephemeral work, a fun little cash-grab that would unexpectedly develop into one of my favourite novelistic careers.
(On a little note about my copy, I had the Broadview edition edited by Catherine Ingressia, which also included Shamela. For the most part, I found it a brilliant edition but I was rather irritated by the footnotes. It had the American ‘thing’ of describing well-known London locations but it also explained very common phrases as if they were something strange and archaic. Do people really not understand what ‘fast and loose’ means?)
November 13, 2014
I only read about 150 pages of Anti-Pamela, which is an interesting book, and if you have read Pamela and are familiar with the types of issues they both were trying to address, it is fairly fun to read; but I would only give Anti-Pamela a three (I read it for a class and we didn't have to finish it, so I didn't and the teacher filled us in on the ending).
SHAMELA, however, is amazing! I read it for the same class and it actually made me laugh out loud at parts, which is hard to do with a book. I will admit, Shamela would be merely amusing if you hadn't read Pamela, and you wouldn't get nearly 3/4 of the jokes, but if you have read Pamela, Shamela is hilarious (and even if you liked Pamela, which I am not sure if I did or not, I haven't rated it because again, our teacher had us read 300 pages and then filled us in on the rest of the novel). I loved Shamela, it is short too, it was around 50 pages long. If you have read Pamela, then Shamela is a must read. If you haven't read Pamela, then you might enjoy Shamela, but you won't get the full effect, even if you think you do, because you have to trudge through at least half of Pamela to really feel it (if you read to about 350 pages in any edition of Pamela, I think you have read enough to REALLY get Shamela).
SHAMELA, however, is amazing! I read it for the same class and it actually made me laugh out loud at parts, which is hard to do with a book. I will admit, Shamela would be merely amusing if you hadn't read Pamela, and you wouldn't get nearly 3/4 of the jokes, but if you have read Pamela, Shamela is hilarious (and even if you liked Pamela, which I am not sure if I did or not, I haven't rated it because again, our teacher had us read 300 pages and then filled us in on the rest of the novel). I loved Shamela, it is short too, it was around 50 pages long. If you have read Pamela, then Shamela is a must read. If you haven't read Pamela, then you might enjoy Shamela, but you won't get the full effect, even if you think you do, because you have to trudge through at least half of Pamela to really feel it (if you read to about 350 pages in any edition of Pamela, I think you have read enough to REALLY get Shamela).
August 11, 2013
The Broadview edition has a nice set of supporting documents (including sections from "Pamela" and conduct literature). Haywood and Fielding both do a nice job of lampooning Richardson in their own way. Haywood's "Anti-Pamela" seems like the more important document, since she actually crafts a dystopian narrative in order to chip away at Richardson's fantasy of virtue and domestic servitude. Syrena Tricksy isn't quite as compelling as Cornelia from "The London Jilt," but I did enjoy the axis of evil that she forms with her mother, Anne. Haywood's purpose is to reveal what would be the far-likelier fate of a domestic servant like Pamela. Fielding's series of cheeky letters are fun, although the heart of his critique seems to reside in the "points" on the last page, which take Richardson's novel to task. I did enjoy how he poked fun at the prefatory materials of "Pamela," which suggest that the novel is more useful than a sermon.
January 16, 2016
Pamela is one of the most ridiculed "classics" of the 18th century, and Henry Fielding was a genius for her satire. After reading Pamela, it was a nice break to watch Fielding lampoon both the insufferable character of Pamela herself and Samuel Richardson for creating her. Fielding also implicitly calls Richardson out and questions the motives for Richardon's creation of such a character. Shamela is a very short and quick read and will keep you laughing all the way through, but the jokes do become repetitive very quickly so I can't see myself reading it again any time soon.
February 7, 2011
After reading the dreadful Pamela, this was a great comic relief. I guess it is necessary to have put yourself through the torture of Pamela to fully understand how awesome these parodies are.
**I would also like to note that this edition is fantastic.
Catherine Ingrassia provides very interesting footnotes that were very revealing in understanding the intricacies of 18th century culture (specifically regarding servants in Anti-Pamela).
**I would also like to note that this edition is fantastic.
Catherine Ingrassia provides very interesting footnotes that were very revealing in understanding the intricacies of 18th century culture (specifically regarding servants in Anti-Pamela).
July 14, 2012
Eliza Haywood shines in these two responses to "Pamela." She is raunchy, philosophical, and retells the story of Pamela turning the innocent pastoral girl into part of a conniving mother-daughter whoring duo. Much more fun to read than "Pamela" but these works require a patient reading of their source material to really enjoy.
July 5, 2012
Really enjoyed Shamela, had a tougher time getting through Anti-Pamela. Both, however, offer an interesting commentary on Richardson's Pamela
October 7, 2012
While these are interesting responses to Samuel Richardson's Pamela, I didn't find them as utterly precious as the original. Though some scenes and wordings are highly amusing.
October 6, 2012
Loved it! It is extremely funny if you've read Pamela!
September 30, 2013
Anti-Pamela - 4 stars
Shamela - 4 stars
Shamela - 4 stars
November 8, 2024
📚 Abbiamo conosciuto Pamela (scorrete indietro nei miei post) e abbiamo conosciuto suo fratello (idem), perché non conoscere anche l’anti-Pamela? Il romanzo è in lingua inglese (indovinate perché? Ebbene sì, l’ho studiato per lo stesso esame di letteratura 😂) e si intitola 𝐴𝑛𝑡𝑖-𝑃𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑎, 𝑂𝑟 𝐹𝑒𝑖𝑔𝑛’𝑑 𝐼𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 (che potremmo tradurre con “La scoperta della finta innocenza”).
📚 La protagonista si chiama Syrena Tricksy ed è quanto di più lontano possa esservi dalla figura di Pamela di Samuel Richardson. Syrena non si innamora, ma trae in inganno i suoi spasimanti attraverso la sua bellezza e la sua astuzia. È pratica dell’arte della finzione e sa fingere perfettamente le buone maniere. Un’opera a mio dire davvero trasgressiva se consideriamo che venne pubblicata nel 1741.
✨ Se siete curiosə di conoscere tutti i libri inerenti alla storia di Pamela, ecco, questo fa al caso vostro. È anche molto divertente, è stata una lettura molto piacevole.
-Come Ariel.
📚 La protagonista si chiama Syrena Tricksy ed è quanto di più lontano possa esservi dalla figura di Pamela di Samuel Richardson. Syrena non si innamora, ma trae in inganno i suoi spasimanti attraverso la sua bellezza e la sua astuzia. È pratica dell’arte della finzione e sa fingere perfettamente le buone maniere. Un’opera a mio dire davvero trasgressiva se consideriamo che venne pubblicata nel 1741.
✨ Se siete curiosə di conoscere tutti i libri inerenti alla storia di Pamela, ecco, questo fa al caso vostro. È anche molto divertente, è stata una lettura molto piacevole.
-Come Ariel.
October 5, 2021
After reading Pamela by Samuel Richardson, you've just got to read Anti-Pamela and Shamela by Eliza Fowler Haywood and Henry Fielding.
Richardson's style makes him the perfect target of the satires produced by these two giants of the novel.
Richardson's style makes him the perfect target of the satires produced by these two giants of the novel.
November 24, 2022
While I only read the portion of this book Anti-Pamela, I did find it entertaining especially compared to Pamela. This part of this novel was a look into the way that people's opinions on Pamela are formed. It was quite refreshing after reading Pamela.
May 4, 2021
*read for university
February 24, 2022
Amazingly, I enjoyed this more than I enjoyed Richardson's Pamela. Read for a class, but, with context, would have enjoyed outside of the class as well.
March 29, 2023
Forced myself to finish.
February 9, 2024
Delightfully dramatic and wonderful responses to Richardson’s Pamela.
November 24, 2021
'Shamela' frustrated me because Fielding somehow manages to be even more misogynistic than Richardson in the original 'Pamela'. He is an "anti-Pamelist" in the sense that he is suspicious of Pamela's claim to "Virtue" (or "Vartue" as Fielding satirises it).
However Eliza Haywood does a slightly better job of fundamentally critiquing the reductive notion of "Virtue", and also presents a more realistic picture of Syrena having to work and earn her living in London, as opposed to Pamela who is restricted to the domestic sphere and her poverty is treated by Richardson as an abstract moral discussion, not a practical reality.
Next I want to read 'Fanny Hill' which apparently makes good use of euphemism and innuendo, and is also an "anti-Pamela" text of the time.
Very good introduction and appendices in this edition. I learnt a lot.
update a few months later: never thought I would be rereading this. randomly had to be done
However Eliza Haywood does a slightly better job of fundamentally critiquing the reductive notion of "Virtue", and also presents a more realistic picture of Syrena having to work and earn her living in London, as opposed to Pamela who is restricted to the domestic sphere and her poverty is treated by Richardson as an abstract moral discussion, not a practical reality.
Next I want to read 'Fanny Hill' which apparently makes good use of euphemism and innuendo, and is also an "anti-Pamela" text of the time.
Very good introduction and appendices in this edition. I learnt a lot.
update a few months later: never thought I would be rereading this. randomly had to be done
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April 15, 20221741
March 25, 2013
Oddly enough, I preferred Anti-Pamela. Shamela was just too trite for me.
March 25, 2019
After reading Pamela, Shamela is a riot. It's easy to take Pamela at face value if you are attempting a historical mindset, which easily produces a feminist critique of of the patriarchal and social structures of which Pamela resists. However, it is also incredibly easy to read Pamela (the character) as an unreliable narrator who is carefully telling her story in a way that preserves her virtue. Shamela reintroduces that reading, creating in Pamela a lascivious, gold-digging, daughter of a suspected prostitute who is using her "vartue" as a means of entrapping Mr. B(ooby).
Anti-Pamela, in contrast, is a decidedly different approach to countering Pamela, in that it strips the Pamela character (Syrena) of virtue, and truly leans into the self-possessed, virtueless predator that seeks money and social standing.
Anti-Pamela, in contrast, is a decidedly different approach to countering Pamela, in that it strips the Pamela character (Syrena) of virtue, and truly leans into the self-possessed, virtueless predator that seeks money and social standing.
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