In the eighteenth century writing letters was the only way to conduct business from a distance and to communicate with relatives and friends living afar. Writing polished letters that showed off the erudition and taste of the writer became fashionable. Also, many of the books published in the eighteenth century were composed of texts which were intended to give advice―so-called conduct books that were published as manuals or in the form of letters. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was in the stationer and printing trade; he was familiar with this type of writing. He was in his early fifties already and running a successful business―printing the Journals of the House of Commons and popular newspapers and periodicals of the period―when he was commissioned to write and publish a series of “familiar” (domestic) letters which would serve as models for future writers of letters and would advise them on “how to think and act justly and prudently, in the common Concerns of Human Life.” These letters also launched Richardson’s career as a novelist and served as an inspiration for his first novel, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740). The success was enormous. Almost everybody read Pamela and it soon became the best-seller of the period. It was generally regarded to be a highly moral work, despite some of the seduction scenes which were described in lingering and loving detail by the author. Even clergymen took care to recommend Pamela in theirs sermons, treating it more as a conduct book which showed proper female behaviour to the younger generation.