How a tedious moralizing scold created a vivid fifteen year old girl and launched the modern novel.

Samuel Richardson was a prig, even by the standards of his time, but his first novel was such a hit, it generated some of the first commercial tie-ins:

'To read Richardson is to enter a moral universe in which the terms “virtue” and “honesty” are used, unironically, as synonyms for virginity. Richardson’s puritanism was extreme even for his period. (Flanders, for example, spoke playfully about her virginity as a “trifle . . . to be had” easily.) But the sanctimonious tone didn’t deter many readers. The novel was so popular that “Pamela”-inspired merchandise, from teacups to fans, quickly sprang up, as did spurious sequels, a theatrical version, and even a comic opera. The book also drew praise for its edifying story line. (“Virtue Rewarded” is its apt subtitle.) Alexander Pope gave it a jolt of publicity when he said that it would “do more good than many volumes of sermons,” a quote that may have been solicited by Richardson’s brother-in-law, a bookseller.'

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/16/samuel-richardson-inventor-of-the-modern-novel