Samuel Richardson, the first, in order of time, of the great English novelists, was born in 1689 and died at London in 1761. He was a printer by trade, and rose to be master of the Stationers' Company. That he also became a novelist was due to his skill as a letter-writer, which brought him, in his fiftieth year, a commission to write a volume of model
"familiar letters" as an aid to persons too illiterate to compose their own. The notion of connecting these letters by a story which had interested him suggested the plot of "Pamela" and determined its epistolary form--a form which was retained in his later works.
