Joseph Andrews [Paperback]

Henry Fielding (Author), Paul Scanlon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2001

Joseph Andrews, first published in 1742, is in part a parody of Samuel Richardson's Pamela. But whereas Richardson's novel is marked by the virtues of female chastity and the triumph of steadfast morality, Fielding's Joseph Andrews is peopled with lascivious women, thieves, hypocrites, and general fools. As we follow the characters in their travels, what unfolds is a lively panoramic satire of mid-Georgian England.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Paul Scanlon's edition of Fielding's first novel — and the first comic novel in English — amounts to a complete kit: a student-friendly text (with capitals and italics normalized), brief and illuminating footnotes, a comprehensive, lucid Introduction, a seven-page Bibliography, and a 113-page treasure-house of appendices containing generous samples of Richardson's Pamela and Fielding's Shamela, excerpts from Fielding's comic models (such as the Maritornes passage from Don Quixote) and from Fielding's other writings (including essay-chapters from Tom Jones), and fascinating sections on the novel's publication history, contemporary responses to it, and “A Social History of the Times” dealing with dress, eating and drinking habits, servants, stagecoaches and inns, laws and courts, education, and the like. This edition is a model of useful scholarship.” (Bruce Stovel )

“This edition of Joseph Andrews is an excellent introduction to Fielding as well as a fine edition of his first novel. . . . The substantial extracts from Shamela and Fielding's other writings are supported by an invaluable section on social history and by passages from influential contemporaries.” (Jim Mclaverty )

From the Back Cover

Joseph Andrews, first published in 1742, is in part a parody of Samuel Richardson's Pamela. But whereas Richardson's novel is marked by the virtues of female chastity and the triumph of steadfast morality, Fielding's Joseph Andrews is peopled with lascivious women, thieves, hypocrites, and general fools. As we follow the characters in their travels, what unfolds is a lively panoramic satire of mid-Georgian England.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 530 pages
• Publisher: Broadview Press; 1 edition (April 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1551112205
• ISBN-13: 978-1551112206
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,036,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredible book on real friendship ,chastity and honesty, January 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Joseph Andrews (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

This is an incredible book about real friendship,chastity and honesty written in the most humorous fashion.Fielding brings out the true values of friendship beteween Parson Adams and Joseph and true love between the latter and Funny.He points out the sad but true "false" nature of the upper class and brings out questions about real life.I like this book because it encourages chastity and esteems honesty.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars wonderful read.., July 7, 2005

By 

Jennifer Giangrande "twentysomethingreader" (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joseph Andrews (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

The prize of this novel is the ability of the author to actually poke fun at his own readers...Fielding encourages us to stop, take a break at each short chapter; at some points he even laments that certain passages aren't worth reading, and just skipping over them would lose nothing in the reader's understanding of the content. This of course, works for us in that it makes us more prone to envelop ourselves in every chapter, following the always clumsy journey and comic circumstance of Parson Adams and Joseph Andrews. The journey from country to city is a prevalent theme in the novel, and through these distinctions, we are able to pinpoint the nuanced comedy Fielding finds in living in his own time period. To understand this you must put yourself inside of the 18th century, and more helpful would be to read the novel that this book is a parody of, "Pamela". Fielding challenges the notions of love and chastity in his time in a hysterical way; that is, if you can follow the winding text and dated grammar..
..But what a great book. Really.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Intelligent and Hilarious Satire of Social Hypocrisy - Ever, October 3, 2009

By 

Douglas S. Wood "Vicarious Life" (Monona, WI) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Joseph Andrews (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

Second only to Voltaire's Candide: Or Optimism (Penguin Classics), Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews is the funniest, most intelligent, satirical commentary I've ever read. Actually, let's get rid of the qualifiers, Joseph Andrews is one of the two funniest books I've ever read. (I first read it in college and it introduced me to the idea that important old books could also be highly entertaining, interesting, and illuminating.)

The book was first published in 1742 under the title "The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams" to some controversy. Fielding did not hesitate to poke merciless fun at just about everything 'respectable': religion, the law, lords and ladies, and sexual mores. Fielding attacked the moral hypocrisy of Joseph Richardson's popular Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded (Oxford World's Classics). (Fielding also wrote a short work, Shamela, that was a direct response to Pamela. Shamela is often sold together with Joseph Andrews See e.g., Joseph Andrews and Shamela (Penguin Classics).) Pamela created a huge literary controversy; Shamela and Joseph Andrews were just two of many mocking responses, although few others survive (see, e.g. Anti-Pamela and Shamela).

Joseph (who is Pamela's brother!) is a genial but naïve rustic and a footman in the service of Lady Booby (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). When Joseph rejects her very direct and bawdy advances, Lady Booby sends him packing. Joseph then begins walking home from London to the country to seek out (and marry) Fanny Goodwill, his lifelong sweetheart. Along the way he meets his hometown friend the amiable and forgetful Parson Abraham Adams. Parson Adams is on his way to London to sell his sermons for publication. When Adams discovers he has forgotten to pack said sermons, he and Joseph decide to travel home together. The trip is the departure point for many adventures and mishaps that expose the society's hypocrisy and inequities. Along the way, the reader meets many colorful characters whose pretensions often land them in dire circumstances - furnishing much hilarity to us.

Fielding purported to aim at nothing less the invention of a new literary form, the "comic epic-poem in prose". He says in his Preface, "it may not be improper to premise a few words concerning this kind of writing, which I do not remember to have seen hitherto attempted in our language." Fielding, however, was also known to write 'serio-comic', ironic introductions to his works, so some caution is in order. Nonetheless, the Preface accurately describes his "comic epic-poem in prose" as "differing from comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy: its action being more extended and comprehensive; containing a much larger circle of incidents, and introducing a greater variety of characters. It differs from the serious romance in its fable and action, in this: that as in the one these are grave and solemn, so in the other they are light and ridiculous; it differs in its characters, by introducing persons of inferiour rank, and consequently of inferiour manners, whereas the grave romance sets the highest before us; lastly in its sentiments and diction; by preserving the ludicrous instead of the sublime."

Absolutely the highest possible recommendation.