Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, first published in 1740, tells the story of a beautiful fifteen-year old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose nobleman master, Mr. B, makes unwanted advances towards her after the death of his mother, whose maid she had been since age twelve.

Mr. B is infatuated with her, first by her looks and then her innocence and intelligence, but his high rank hinders him from proposing marriage.

He abducts her, locks her up in one of his estates, and attempts to seduce and rape her.

She rejects him continually, but starts to realize that she is falling in love with him.

He intercepts her letters to her parents; reading them, he becomes even more enamored by her innocence, intelligence, and continuous escape attempts.

Her virtue is eventually rewarded when he sincerely proposes an equitable marriage to her.

In the novel's second part, Pamela attempts to build a successful relationship with him and to acclimate to upperclass society.

The story, a bestseller of its time, is very widely read but criticized for its perceived licentiousness.

The Foundling Hospital in London, founded in 1741 by the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram, is a children's home established for the "education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children."

The word "hospital" is used in a more general sense than it is today, simply indicating the institution's "hospitality" to those less fortunate.

Several novels are written in response to Samuel Richardson's popular novel Pamela (November 1740), satirizing the innocence of the character of Pamela Andrews.

An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, or simply Shamela, as it is more commonly known, is a satirical novel written by Henry Fielding and first published in April 1741 under the name of Mr. Conny Keyber.

Fielding never owned to writing the work, but it is widely considered to be his own direct attack on his contemporary and rival Richardson and is composed, like Pamela, in epistolary form.

Eliza Haywood’s The Anti-Pamela; or Feign’d Innocence Detected, much like the more popular Shamela, portrays the female protagonist as a social climber, although Haywood's character is much less licentious than Fielding's Shamela.

David Garrick on October 19 makes his first appearance as Shakespeare's Richard III.

His performance quickly packs theaters.

Hogarth’s The Enraged Musician, a 1741 etching and engraving, depicts a comic scene of a violinist driven to distraction by the cacophony outside his window.

It is issued as companion piece to the third state of his print of The Distrest Poet.