The politics of Pamela

Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) explored the issue of the sexual exploitation of the poor by the rich and privileged in a way that related to features of the market economy in England that were little understood on the Continent, where rewrites of Richardson's novel for the stage elevate the social status of Richardson's servant girl in order to make the infatuation of her upper-class lover more palatable to theatre audiences.