SOURCE: Woods, Charles B. “Fielding and the Authorship of Shamela.” Philological Quarterly 25, no. 3 (July, 1946): 248-72.

In the following essay, Woods argues that Shamela was written by Fielding, citing as evidence the similar subject matter in Fielding's essays and Fielding's distinctive prose style.

Since 1900, when Miss Clara L. Thomson suggested that the parody of Pamela (pub. Nov. 6, 1740) entitled An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews … By Mr. Conny Keyber (pub. April 4, 1741) was “not improbably written by Fielding,”¹ considerable attention has been given to this curious link between Richardson's earliest novel and Joseph Andrews (pub. Feb. 22, 1742), Fielding's first acknowledged piece of prose fiction. The researches of Dobson, de Castro, Cross, McKillop, and others² have so strengthened the hypothesis of Fielding's authorship that Shamela should eventually win an undisputed place in the Fielding canon.³

Of course the most satisfactory proof would be the discovery of an explicit statement by...