One of the earliest romance novels was Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, by Samuel Richardson. Published in 1740, Pamela was the first popular novel to be based on a courtship as told from the perspective of the heroine. Unlike many of the novels of the time, Pamela had a happy ending. The book was one of the first bestsellers, with five editions printed in the first eleven months of release. The genre did not fully take form, however, until the nineteenth century.