Shamela characters

First appears in chapter 3

A maid who presents herself to Squire Booby as a model of innocence while writing candidly to her mother about the performance. She treats displays of modesty as a strategy for obtaining marriage, status, and control of her employer's wealth.

Also known as Henrietta Maria Honora Andrews

First appears in chapter 4

Shamela's mother and correspondent. Far from guarding her daughter's virtue, she coaches Shamela to turn Booby's desire into the most profitable possible marriage and praises each successful deception.

First appears in chapter 3

Shamela's wealthy master, easily excited by the appearance of virtue and unable to distinguish staged resistance from principle. He becomes convinced that marrying Shamela will reward goodness, while she privately measures him chiefly by his fortune.

First appears in chapter 7

A clergyman who is Shamela's lover and ally. His convenient teaching about grace separates professed belief from moral conduct, giving Shamela a religious vocabulary with which to excuse deceit and pursue pleasure.

Also known as Lucretia Jervis

First appears in chapter 5

A woman in Booby's household who helps manage Shamela's supposedly private encounters and understands that the maid's alarm and resistance are carefully arranged for an audience.

Appears from the start

A clergyman who initially accepts the celebrated account of a virtuous servant and sends it to a fellow parson with admiration. The papers he receives in return force him to reconsider both the story and the moral instruction drawn from it.

First appears in chapter 2

Tickletext's clerical correspondent, who rejects the public version of Shamela's story. He supplies a collection of letters that he presents as evidence of calculation, hypocrisy, and clerical corruption behind the exemplary tale.