Billionaire romances are plentiful. Search for any type of romance on Amazon, and you’ll see several. Love them or hate them, they are here to stay and have been since 1740 when Samuel Richardson penned Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded.
Romance novels are all about suspending disbelief. No way would the billionaire go for the poor schmo in real life, but it’s a fantasy! And the reader of Pamela has to suspend a lot, because the plot is truly unbelievable.
Samual Richsrdson
Calling it salacious is almost an understatement. The book’s wide appeal was that every female reader saw herself as the virtuous Pamela and were eagerly shocked and scandalized by her treatment at the hands of Mr. B., who is determined to seduce a servant girl. He molests her whenever he can get her alone—which, is whenever he likes.
Pamela manages to tell the local preacher, Mr. Williams, about her untenable situation, and Mr. Williams agrees to help her out by marrying her. Awesome! For a poor maid to marry a preacher is definitely a step up the social ladder. But Pamela says no. I am not kidding! Such as marriage would certainly satisfy her need to preserve her virtue. I suppose her aim is no marriage at all, but what world did she grow up in? Oh, she didn’t grow up; she’s only fifteen!
Mr. B attempts to get into bed with her and rape her. When she realizes what’s happening, Pamela has a fit—like, literally a fit: a seizure so strong that Mr. B is afraid she’ll die. After that incident, Mr. B’s behavior changes. He stops trying to seduce her, and he mumbles he might maybe sort of think about asking her to marry him, Pamela still wants to go home.
Furious, he sends her home … then he writes begging her to come back. For some reason, (that is unclear to everyone) Pamela believes all his talk about reform and admits that she has some feelings for him, too. Really? She’s just like a modern abused wife who won’t leave her husband because she loves him. Maybe she missed all the attention. So, she goes back (her parents thought that was a good idea?), and after some tedious talk about their class differences, they decide to marry. Really? For the modern reader, Pamela’s happy acquiescence is inexplicable. It was probably inexplicable for readers in 1740 too, but they loved it anyway.
I was twelve when I read Pamela, which I found on my grandparents’ bookshelf beside two volumes of Tom Jones (which I also read.) I thought it was idiotic. I imagine so did the readers in the 1700s. But they found it titillating and entertaining even though they railed against the crossing of class boundaries (not the sexual harassment, which was an accepted fact of life.)
Despite its detractors, it was a best seller! In fact, it created a mania in Britain and the continent. It spawned books, imitations, plays, translations, waxworks, murals, paintings, engravings, and parodies. Any author today should wish for such a public response!
A billionaire is the 21st century version of the handsome Prince Charming. He represents security and support, and the woman who falls in love with him will never have to want for anything. When women historically have suffered by not being paid as much as men or not being allowed to work at all, it makes sense that the ultimate dreams is never having to worry about spending money at all because you always have enough for whatever you want.
The rise of the billionaires came at the same time as the Great Recession, which hit male workers particularly hard. That made a lot of women into sole breadwinners for the first time, creating a kind of stress and pressure that you can see making the billionaire who takes care of you and gets rid of your shitty boss really appealing.
Bottom line: Cinderella stories are here to stay. And as far as billionaire romance goes, they might not require as much suspending of reality as you thought. According to Forbes’s 2023 list of billionaires, there were 2,640 billionaires worldwide in 2023.(1)
(1) A record year for ten-figure wealth, https://www.forbes.com/billionaires
