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The Other Pamela : Readership and the Illustrated Chapbook Abridgement
Author(s) -
Jung Sandro
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12416
Subject(s) - audience measurement , readability , art , art history , media studies , sociology , literature , linguistics , political science , philosophy , law
This article investigates questions of readership, pricing and visual literacy by relating eighteenth‐century illustrated chapbook abridgements of Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) to the author's 1742 edition, featuring illustrations by Hubert‐François Gravelot and Francis Hayman. It focuses on the affordability of chapbook abridgements and the straightforward readability of their illustrations, which would have been accessible to many readers. While few readers would have had access, financially, to the Gravelot–Hayman de luxe edition, Pamela chapbooks reached larger groups of readers and shaped the text's popular reception.