Following the disastrous Seven Years’ War, France agreed to quit Canada
and leave it to the British, which was not at all what the local tribesmen wanted.
Letitia Barbauld called Samuel Richardson’s 1740 novel Pamela
‘a new experiment’ in English literature, and to judge by its reception
it was very successful.
When literary critics decide that a book is not worthy of their
notice they expect the public to follow their lead, but ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ was different.