virtue rewarded

Richardson, a printer by trade, had already had success with his first novel, “Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded,” published in 1740.

The primary plotline — Sharp navigating the attentions of an unwanted suitor while putting on a play, titled “Virtue Rewarded” — works well enough and mimics Austen’s “Mansfield Park.”

As for the ending, Beethoven’s original deus ex machina — virtue rewarded, evil punished — was referred to as a relic of a better time, but not something possible in the real world.

Truth still mattered; in the epic, sprawling narrative of America, vice would eventually be punished and virtue rewarded.

It takes its cues from — and then riffs like mad on — “Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded,” published in 1740 and sometimes described, debatably, as the first English novel.