becomes merely the “least weigh’d” of his judgments, and his blindness becomes oversight. He is no longer pedantic; he no longer makes vulgar allusions, but only fears that they might be made.
In the fifth edition, Richardson seems chiefly concerned with redundancy, but he also diminishes some of the praise. In deference to the gentleman, it would seem, Richardson deletes his flattery of Hill on pages xxix and xxxi, and “some of the most beautiful Letters that have been written in any Language” become simply “Letters.” Perhaps Richardson’s conscience was bothering him. Perhaps he had heard from his anonymous correspondent after all: he now identifies the gentleman’s remarks as coming “in a Letter from the Country.” Unless pure fancy, this is new information, for the letter, now in the Forster collection, in no way indicates its place of origin. Richardson’s seeking of the gentleman through advertisement in London newspapers suggests that he thought of his correspondent as a city man.
In the fifth edition one detects a certain discomfort with the false editorship and the praise Richardson permits himself with it. His direct response to criticism is slight. He deletes “from low to high Life,” since Pamela’s Conduct in High Life had appeared four months previous. From the passages which Fielding ridicules in Shamela, he drops no more than “wonderful” from before “AUTHOR of Pamela.” In the passage introducing the new letters (page xv) Richardson now apologizes. The Author, he implies, wanted the praises omitted, but much to his sorrow the Editor could not disentangle them from the “critical remarks.” The author’s modesty, however, remains in the realm of possibility only.
Where self-praise is strong a vague uneasiness sets Richardson to work on the style, unable to locate the center of his trouble. On page v “strongly interest them in the edifying Story” becomes “attach their regard to the Story,” but this is barely to nibble at his phrase “so probable, so natural, so lively” just preceding, which perished in the eighth edition.
Similarly, he attempts to cure the last paragraph of his preface through minor incisions. He drops the parenthesis about the “great Variety of entertaining Incidents”, and he diminishes “these engaging Scenes” to “it”. But the paragraph is still too much for him. In the eighth edition he cuts all but the outlines of his editor-author pretext.
The seventh edition does no more than sharpen punctuation. The eighth in general continues to trim little excesses, though the loss is scarcely noticeable. Richardson further reduces Hill’s praise of the book and his own praise of Hill, feeling his way toward a detached view of his book, looking to posterity. Since Pamela has fulfilled the prediction of foreign renown made by his French friend, de Freval, Richardson now omits de Freval’s obliging treachery to the literature of France (page ix). Since the “delightful story” is anecdotal and not critical, it too disappears. Other changes simply testify an author’s attention to his style, uninhibited by the fact that the style is indeed not his. He deletes a senseless remark about masculine flexibility. He removes “Nature” from the foundation of the narrative (title page and page v, though left on page viii) probably to avoid implying that Nature is in the foundation only.
From the first, Richardson’s disguise as editor is little more than half-hearted. Its purpose was at first partly commercial, permitting advertising in the preface. Four ladies urged him on, so, Richardson confesses, he “struck a bold stroke in the preface... having the umbrage of the editor’s character to screen [him] self behind.”[15] But the author nevertheless threw rather distinct shadows on the screen. His preface speaks of the book altogether as a work of fiction: the editor has “set forth” social duties; he has “painted” vice and virtue, “drawn” characters, “raised,” “taught,” “effected,” and “embellished with a great variety of entertaining incidents.” Yet, suddenly, the editor also seems to have done nothing more than to have “perused these engaging scenes,” written a preface, and gotten them into print.
Richardson cannot quite give the imaginary author substance. “These sheets” have accomplished all the wonders claimed for them, not “the author of these sheets.” Richardson speaks not of the author, but of an author, of authors in general. The implication hangs over the preface, and is strengthened by de Freval’s letter, that the editor himself has worked up the story from the barest details of real life (which is, of course, what Richardson did). De Freval continues to speak of the work entirely as of creative writing. The epistolary style is aptly devised; the book will become a pattern for this kind of fiction; it is contrived for readers of all tastes. But, quite in contradiction, de Freval also implies that the editor has shown him the author’s original work, together with certain editorial changes necessary to protect the real Pamela and Mr. B.
The second letter, presumably Webster’s, toys with the suggestion that a young woman actually wrote the letters which Richardson edits: “let us have Pamela as Pamela wrote it.” But this is only in play. Although the writer disparages “Novels,” the note which heads his letter when it first appeared in The Weekly Miscellany speaks of the “Author of Pamela” who has “written an English Novel,”[16] and his opening remarks are clearly those of a critic speaking of fiction.
Hill’s first letter goes solidly for the conclusion that an author, a man of genius, wrote the book. The heading, “To the Editor of Pamela”, is Richardson’s only attempt to bring Hill’s letter into his already wavering line. In the fifth edition, however, he introduces this letter with his only straight statement that an author, distinct from the editor, is involved, an author who begged the editor not to include flattery.