SOURCE: Gooding, Richard. “Pamela, Shamela, and the Politics of the Pamela Vogue.” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 7, no. 2 (January 1995): 109-30.

In the following essay, Gooding discusses the similarities and differences between Richardson's Pamela and the parodies it spawned, including Shamela.

There are Swarms of Moral Romances. One, of late Date, divided the World into such opposite Judgments, that some extolled it to the Stars, whilst others treated it with Contempt. Whence arose, particularly among the Ladies, two different Parties, Pamelists and Antipamelists. … Some look upon this young Virgin as an Example for Ladies to follow; nay, there have been those, who did not scruple to recommend this Romance from the Pulpit. Others, on the contrary, discover in it, the Behaviour of an hypocritical, crafty Girl, in her Courtship; who understands the Art of bringing a Man to her Lure.¹

Ever since Dr Peter Shaw's assertion in The Reflector that Pamela had...