SOURCE: "'Naming the Writer': Exposure, Authority, and Desire in Pamela," in Criticism, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Spring, 1981, pp. 126-40.

In the following essay, Larson examines parallels in Pamela between Richardson and B, particularly in regard to their avoidance of self-exposure.

Among the many letters of praise prefacing the second edition of Richardson's Pamela, one correspondent is particularly anxious to learn the name of the new book's author. "If it is not a Secret," writes the admirer, "oblige me so far as to tell me his Name; for since I feel him to be a Friend of my Soul, it would be a Kind of Violation to retain him a Stranger."¹ Less enthused readers of Richardson may smile at this sort of importunate curiosity, but it would be a mistake to underestimate the desire that motivates this appeal: the desire to secure a singular, unmediated intimacy between reader and author...