Virtue, seduction and foundlings in the English novel of the 1700s

Why did early novels focus on female virtue?

Early novels focused on female virtue because a woman's sexual reputation determined her marriage prospects, her income and her place in society, and so supplied a ready-made plot ^[1][5]. In a world where marriage settled property and rank, a heroine's honour was a form of capital, and its loss was a disaster that could be narrated with great force. The novelists of the 1720s and 1740s took the theme in several different directions.

Defoe used it to tell a story of survival. Richardson turned it into a conduct manual and then into a tragedy. Fielding treated it with irony, and with a male hero whose faults were forgiven in ways a woman's were not. The three writers did not agree, and the disagreement is much of the history of the form. Samuel Richardson's Pamela is described by Wikipedia as written as a kind of conduct manual about marriage, with a moral aim stated in its subtitle, Virtue Rewarded ^[5].

The legal setting shaped the stories too. Marriage in England before Lord Hardwicke's Act of 1753 could still be formed informally, a history told in the page on the Marriage Act of 1753. The law also allowed civil claims in which a father might sue a seducer for the loss of his daughter's services, one of the 'heart balm' actions described on the page on breach of promise and related actions. Those claims reflected the same assumption as the novels: that a woman's sexual conduct was a matter for her family and her community.

The fiction was not simply a mirror of the law. It also changed how readers thought about the subject. A heroine who wrote her own letters, or told her own life story, could make the reader share her point of view, and the sympathy this produced was new in English prose.

Timeline

1. 1722Moll Flanders appears anonymously: a heroine born in Newgate, twelve years a whore, five times a wife, twelve years a thief, eight years transported, who dies a penitent [1][6].
2. Nov 1740Samuel Richardson's Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded is published by Rivington and Osborn and becomes a bestseller [5].
3. 1741Henry Fielding's Shamela and Eliza Haywood's Anti-Pamela satirise Richardson's heroine [5].
4. 1742Pamela in her Exalted Condition, the sequel, appears; Benjamin Franklin prints an American edition of the first Pamela [5].
5. 1747-48Richardson's Clarissa is published in instalments: over a million words and the story of Clarissa Harlowe and Lovelace [2].
6. 28 Feb 1749Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling is first published in London; four editions follow in the first year [7].
7. 1770A bookseller, Francis Noble, attaches Defoe's name to Moll Flanders, which had appeared without an author [6].

What does Moll Flanders say about sex and survival?

Moll Flanders presents sex outside marriage as one of the means by which a poor woman might survive, and it gives her no consistent moral label ^[1][6]. The novel, published in 1722 without an author's name, tells the life of a woman born in Newgate prison, where her mother pleaded her belly to delay her execution ^[6]. The full title summarises her career: about twelve years as a prostitute, five marriages (one to her own brother), twelve years as a thief, and eight years as a convict transported to Virginia, followed by a wealthy and penitent old age ^[1][6].

The details sit uneasily between confession and commerce. Moll becomes a kept woman at one stage, is married several times, and in one marriage discovers that her husband in Virginia is her half-brother, since his mother is also hers ^[6]. When she ends the marriage and returns to England, she turns to theft, helped by a 'Governess' who acts as her receiver of stolen goods. After she is caught, she repents in Newgate ^[6]. She eventually gains wealth in Virginia through her mother's plantation and her son's management, and returns to England in 1683, aged 69, to live a penitent life ^[6].

Critics divide on how to read this. One scholar cited by Wikipedia reads the novel as spiritual autobiography, but notes that only part of the narrative fits that pattern, with other sections concerned with social commentary ^[6]. Others read it as a study of a woman's relation to money, one arguing that Moll sees herself as entitled to wealth and defines her identity through her economic activity ^[6]. Wikipedia also observes that the novel frames her choices in terms of securing financial security ^[6].

The title itself shows the problem. The long title lists her as a whore, a wife, a thief and a convict, and ends with the word penitent ^[1][6]. Whether the repentance is sincere or conventional is one of the oldest questions in the criticism, and the book gives no definitive answer. Wikipedia adds that police censorship occasionally targeted the book, which suggests that its first readers did not always see the penitent frame as a defence ^[6].

How do Pamela and Clarissa treat seduction?

Pamela and Clarissa treat seduction as a test of character, and they reach opposite conclusions: Pamela's virtue is rewarded, and Clarissa's leads to ruin ^[2][5]. Both are epistolary novels by Samuel Richardson, told through letters, which places the reader inside the heroine's thoughts.

Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded was published in November 1740 by Rivington and Osborn ^[5], and its full text is freely available as Project Gutenberg eBook 6124 ^[4]. Pamela Andrews is a pious fifteen-year-old maid who resists the advances of her employer, Mr B, after the death of his mother. He abducts her and holds her at his Lincolnshire estate. In the end he reforms and proposes marriage, and the second part of the book follows her adjustment to upper-class life ^[5]. Her letters to her parents become a journal during her captivity, and their reactions mirror the way that readers react ^[5].

The book was an immediate bestseller. It was read aloud in groups, and sermons used it as an example. It also inspired prints, paintings, waxworks, a fan and playing cards ^[5]. Benjamin Franklin printed an American edition in 1742, although it sold poorly there ^[5]. Richardson revised the text for later editions, softening Pamela's working-class diction and making her parents reduced gentlefolk, and he released fourteen editions, the last posthumously in 1801 ^[5].

Clarissa, published in instalments in 1747–48, takes a darker course. Clarissa Harlowe's parents favour a wealthy but unappealing suitor, Solmes. She is drawn to Lovelace, who takes her to London and isolates her, then pursues her despite her resistance and ultimately rapes her, driven partly by revenge against her family and by his view of her moral superiority ^[2]. Clarissa suffers temporary insanity, and Lovelace, consumed by guilt, dies in a duel ^[2].

Britannica notes that Clarissa runs to over a million words, making it one of the longest English novels, and that Samuel Johnson praised it highly for its knowledge of the human heart ^[2]. It also describes Clarissa as a more fully developed character than the heroine of Pamela ^[2]. The length is part of the method: the long exchange of letters makes the reader live through the delays, evasions and pressures that lead to the crisis.

The two novels together show the range of the 'virtue' theme. In one, resistance to seduction leads to a marriage across class lines. In the other, resistance is not enough, and the victim's death becomes an accusation against the people who failed her.

Why did Fielding answer Richardson with Tom Jones?

Fielding answered Richardson first by parody and later by a very different novel ^[3][5]. His An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (1741) and Eliza Haywood's The Anti-Pamela (1741) both satirised Richardson's heroine ^[5]. Critics of Pamela objected to its bawdiness and to its disregard for class barriers ^[5].

Tom Jones, published on 28 February 1749, is the larger reply, and Britannica's entry on Clarissa describes it as Fielding's response to Richardson ^[2][7]. Its full title is The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Squire Allworthy finds an abandoned baby in his bed, and suspects that it is the illegitimate child of his servant, Jenny Jones. He names him Thomas and has his sister Bridget raise the boy ^[3][7]. As a young man, Tom falls in love with his 'beautiful and virtuous neighbour' Sophia Western, and wins her only after many obstacles ^[3].

The twist is that Tom's mother is Bridget herself, who conceived him with a young man who died around the time of Tom's birth, which makes Tom Allworthy's nephew ^[7]. Along the way Tom has affairs of his own. Molly Seagrim, his first love, becomes pregnant, and a woman he rescues at an inn turns out to be Jenny Jones, which leads to a brief fear of incest ^[7]. His rival, Master Blifil, lies to Allworthy and has Tom banished, but is eventually exposed ^[7].

The difference from Richardson is one of tone and of judgment. Fielding's hero is flawed and sexually active, and he is forgiven. Wikipedia notes that the inclusion of prostitution and sexual promiscuity was original for its time and became the basis for criticism of the book's 'lowness' ^[7]. The book nonetheless became a bestseller ^[7].

Another difference is the treatment of illegitimacy. Wikipedia observes that Tom's status as a bastard drives the class friction that the novel treats as social commentary ^[7]. A foundling who is eventually revealed as a gentleman's nephew allows Fielding to criticise snobbery about birth while still ending with a conventional marriage. The Foundling Hospital in London, set up to care for abandoned children, is discussed in the page on the Foundling Hospital.

How did readers and moralists react?

Readers bought the novels in great numbers, and some moralists objected to them for opposite reasons ^[5][7]. Pamela's admirers used it in sermons, while its critics found it bawdy and socially subversive ^[5]. Parodies such as Shamela suggest that Richardson's moral claims seemed unconvincing to some, and the book's own success provoked unofficial sequels ^[5].

Tom Jones also sold quickly, with four editions in its first year, and the praise was mixed with unease ^[7]. Coleridge later argued that its plot was one of the three most perfect ever planned, alongside Oedipus Rex and The Alchemist ^[7]. The charge of 'lowness' came from those who felt that a hero who sleeps with women outside marriage and is rewarded at the end was setting a bad example ^[7].

Moll Flanders had a different history. It was published anonymously, and Defoe's name was attached to it only in 1770, decades after his death in 1731, by the bookseller Francis Noble ^[6]. Occasionally targeted by police censorship, it has since become the subject of adaptations, including a 1965 film, a 1975 BBC serial and a 1996 ITV series ^[6].

The long-term reaction is more interesting than any single review. The novels turned a legal and religious question, what happens to a woman who has sex outside marriage, into a matter of individual psychology. Readers were invited to ask not only whether the heroine had sinned, but why she had acted, who had pressed her, and whether the world's verdict was fair. That change of emphasis underlies the later Victorian treatments, such as fallen women in the Victorian novel.

What did the novels leave unsaid about law and illegitimacy?

The novels say little about the law as such, but they depend on it throughout, especially on the rules about marriage, property and legitimacy ^[3][6][7]. Moll's marriages and transportation, Pamela's marriage across class lines and Tom Jones's discovery of his birth all turn on legal status. The sources opened for this article do not discuss the legal background in detail, so what follows is a pointer to other pages on this site.

The status of a child born outside marriage determined inheritance, name and prospects. In Tom Jones, the revelation that Tom is the son of Bridget Allworthy changes his standing without removing the fact of his birth outside marriage ^[7]. For how English law later treated such children, see the page on children born outside marriage.

As the page on heart balm actions explains, seduction was a legal wrong chiefly in so far as it injured a father, so a woman who was seduced had few remedies of her own, a feature that the novels dramatise from different directions. Pamela's route out of danger is marriage to the man who has threatened her, and Clarissa has no remedy except death ^[2][5]. The pages on heart balm actions and on Hardwicke's Act, linked earlier, set out how the courts and Parliament dealt with these questions.

What the novels show, above all, is how large a role sexual morality played in the early English novel, and how far the genre was a vehicle for arguing about it. The question 'what is a woman worth, and who decides?' is asked in each book, and each answers it differently.

Frequently asked questions

What does Pamela's subtitle 'Virtue Rewarded' mean?

It states Richardson's moral aim: the heroine's resistance to seduction is rewarded by marriage to her employer, Mr B, after he reforms ^[5]. Wikipedia describes the book as written as a kind of conduct manual about marriage ^[5]. Not every reader accepted the reward as a moral lesson, as the satire Shamela shows ^[5].

Is Tom Jones illegitimate?

Yes. Tom is born outside marriage to Bridget Allworthy and a young man who dies around the time of his birth, though he is raised as a foundling and only later revealed as Squire Allworthy's nephew ^[7]. His status as a bastard drives much of the novel's class friction ^[7].

Why is Clarissa so long?

Because Richardson tells it through letters from several correspondents, and the story unfolds slowly. Britannica says it runs to over a million words, making it one of the longest novels in English ^[2]. The length is part of the method, as it forces the reader to live through the heroine's long ordeal.

Were these novels considered immoral?

Some were, by some readers. Pamela was criticised for its bawdiness, Tom Jones for its 'lowness' in including prostitution and sexual promiscuity, and Moll Flanders was occasionally targeted by police censorship ^[5][6][7]. All three were also widely read and often defended as moral works.

Who wrote Shamela, and why?

Henry Fielding wrote An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (1741) as a satire of Richardson's Pamela ^[5]. Eliza Haywood's The Anti-Pamela (1741) did the same from another angle ^[5]. Both challenged the idea that Pamela's resistance was genuine virtue.

Who wrote Moll Flanders?

Daniel Defoe, though the 1722 first edition carried no author's name ^[6]. His name was attached to it in 1770 by the bookseller Francis Noble, long after his death in 1731 ^[6]. The title page presented the story as Moll's own account, written from her memoranda ^[1][6].