An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, or simply Shamela, as it is more commonly known, is a satirical burlesque, a novella written by Henry Fielding, first published in April 1741 under the name of Mr. Conny Keyber. Fielding never admitted to writing the work, but it is widely considered to be his. It is a direct attack on the then-popular novel Pamela (1740) by Fielding's contemporary and rival Samuel Richardson and is composed, like Pamela, in epistolary form.