Shamela

Name: Shamela
Brand: Naxos
Availability: InStock
Author: Henry Fielding
ISBN: 9781843797470

Author: Henry Fielding

Narrator: Clare Corbett, and cast

Unabridged: 1 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Naxos

Published: 09/02/2013

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Synopsis

Shamela is a bawdy, spirited and hilarious response to Samuel Richardson’s hugely popular 1740 novel, Pamela. In this pointed satire, Shamela (which transpires to be the real name of Richardson’s Pamela) reveals the ulterior motives behind the events that took place in Pamela. Shamela is unlike the virtuous young lady portrayed in Richardson’s novel and she takes command of her master, Squire Booby. Our heroine has planned it all out from the start and she is determined to entrap her master into marriage. Fielding, most famous as the author of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, equated morality with expediency, and he takes advantage of the comic form to provide a multi-layered satire of contemporary politics and values. He lampoons political figures, the clergy and contemporary writers with criticisms that, most importantly, contribute to a comic tour-de-force unlike any other.

About Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) started his career as a playwright until his outspoken satirical plays so annoyed Walpole's Government that a new Licensing Act was introduced to drive him from the stage. He turned to writing various 'comic epics in prose', including Shamela and Tom Jones. A master innovator, he is credited with creating the first modern novels in English. He was also a magistrate and co-founder of the Bow Street Runners, often dubbed as London's first professional police force.

Reviews

Goodreads review by W.D. on June 24, 2019

If you haven't read Tom Jones, think of Joseph Andrews as a warm-up or apprenticeship to that great, vast comic masterpiece: all the elements of the former are present in the latter, if in truncated, embryonic form, but the narrative voice (wise, urbane, latitudinarian, compassionate-but-ironic, suf......more

Goodreads review by David on February 28, 2012

I don't think it is possible for me to review this book without thinking of "Pamela." Really, there is no contest. True, Richardson's prose is a little more approachable on a sentence level, but Fielding isn't generally presenting the thoughts of a naive girl. Beyond that, Fielding wins hands down.......more

Goodreads review by Callie on November 12, 2022

3 stars for shamela (iconic) and 1 star for JA (so boring that I wished I was reading pamela)......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on December 27, 2016

Few great books can have inspired two other great works of literature that were written for the purpose of ridiculing it. There can also be few works of literature that helped to inspire another author of conservative leanings to contribute towards one of the greatest innovations in English literatu......more

Goodreads review by Leslie on October 05, 2020

Fielding's (mis)reading of Pamela is simultaneously hilariously funny and deeply misogynistic. And the way he alters the emerging form of the novel to suit his own theatricality, away from Richardson's intense, claustrophobic interiority, is fascinating. And I always love his energetic experiments i......more