Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded

The London printing for Rivington and Osborn — dated 1741, issued November 1740 — is the true first, and volumes I–II alone constitute it. Volumes III–IV ('Pamela in her Exalted Condition'), Richardson's own continuation printed for S. Richardson and sold by Rivington and Osborn, are dated 1742 and were published 7 December 1741; they are a sequel, not part of the first edition, and four-volume sets are made up from two separate first editions. The first American edition is the Philadelphia printing 'reprinted and sold by B. Franklin', 1742–43, collected as the first novel printed in America and a landmark of Americana — but it is a reprint of a later London text, not a true first, and must never be catalogued as one. Both editions are collected, for entirely different reasons: the London 1740/41 as the first appearance of the work, the Franklin Philadelphia 1742–43 as an American printing milestone.