Joseph Andrews and Shamela (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Henry Fielding (Author), Judith Hawley (Editor)

Book Description

Release date: November 1, 1999

‘Kissing, Joseph, is but a Prologue to a Play. Can I believe a young Fellow of your Age and Complexion will be content with Kissing?’

Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding’s first full-length novel, depicts the many colourful and often hilarious adventures of a comically chaste servant. After being sacked for spurning the lascivious Lady Booby, Joseph takes to the road, accompanied by his beloved Fanny Goodwill, a much-put-upon foundling girl, and Parson Adams, a man often duped and humiliated, but still a model of Christian charity. In the boisterous short tale Shamela, a brilliant parody of Richardson’s Pamela, the spirited and sexually honest heroine uses coyness and mock modesty to catch herself a rich husband. Together these works anticipate Fielding’s great comic epic Tom Jones, with their amiable good humour and pointed social satire.

Judith Hawley’s introduction compares the works of Fielding and Richardson, and discusses sex and class relations, and the literary and political world of the time. This volume also includes a chronology and suggestions for further reading.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Hawley's introduction is a model of what such a thing should be (for an undergraduate audience): full of information, but not too pushy. She manages to touch on a truly remarkable number of important bases in just a few pages—an impressive accomplishment. The notes are good, too. This is the best edition out there for college students."

(Douglas Patey, Sophia Smith Professor of English, Smith College )

From the Publisher

Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarity and ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; a vibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great texts with beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature must be Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers these extensive materials at a price that competes with the most inexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks have durable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial and scholarly standards. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 390 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140433864
• ISBN-13: 978-0140433869
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,028 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Joseph Andrews and Shamela April 8, 2000

By Chris Dunsmore

Format:Paperback

Romping good fun and sharply satirical. Fielding has none of the puritanical prejudices of his contemporary and rival Samuel Richardson.Rather he gives a graphic, humourous and insightful glimpse of eighteenth century rural shannanigans. Both stories are to some extent a response to Richardson's goodie goodie novel Pamela or Virtue Rewarded, Shamela in fact so much so- mimicking then epistulatory narrative and burlesquing the characters and style of the original novel- that you'll miss most of the jokes unless you've read Richardson first. Jospeh Andrews is far more substantial and rewarding containing the full range both of Fielding's humour and social concerns. Vividly presenting the self-serving cynicism of English society his particular speciality lies in puncturing pomposity by comically abrupt opposistions between what his characters preach and practise. Detached, sarcastic and well-read Fielding somehow manages to mix slapstick with Homer, blend eupheimism with innuendo and mangle anyone that he has a grudge against. A novel of the road- if you liked this, you'll love Tom Jones.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Joseph Andrews--Like Kerouac--Goes On The Road August 16, 2006

By Martin Asiner

Format:Paperback

When readers come to JOSEPH ANDREWS--at least outside of a class on the 18th century novel, they usually have heard that this novel by Henry Fielding is funny, sort of an early Keruoac's On The Road. And while it is funny--a closer analogy might be to Hope and Crosby's On the Road films--its less obvious humor lies in its sharp satire, an understanding of which requires a bit of understanding how to place this book in its proper historical and cultural milieu.

To begin with, Fielding wrote JOSEPH ANDREWS when novel writing was still very nearly a brand new genre. The only models he had were from classical antiquity and a few more recent innovators like Swift and Samuel Richardson. Fielding felt that his efforts were so new that he had to justify them, which he did in the often overlooked and unread "Preface" to the book. Reading this preface sheds some much needed light on the genesis of his novel. Fielding notes here that he wrote JOSEPH ANDREWS according to what he saw as the models first used by the classic ancient poetry writers. They wrote mostly poems and epic poems. What Fielding was writing was a genre unknown to them: prose fiction. Fielding thus tries to draw an analogy between what he was writing and what these ancients had written: "Now, a comic romance is a comic epic-poem in prose." Since Fielding clearly saw JOSEPH ANDREWS as a comic romance, it made sense to him that he should follow the strict unities of time and place that the ancients followed in their epic poems. But one often overlooked irony is that this stern self-reminder from his own preface he then abandoned wildly, often, and at the drop of a hat. Thus, for his contemporary audience who had more than a passing acquaintance with classical training, Fielding gets his JOSEPH ANDREWS off with a satirical bang.

The book's plot itself defies explanation. It involves lost heirs, children stolen at birth, secret birthmarks, beatings that somehow leave no bruises: and all these occur fairly early on. The events are so convoluted and over the top that it is difficult to read them or remember them in their listed sequence. Yet, Fielding had good reason to believe that these wildly unbelievable events were precisely what his audiences wanted, since both Swift and Pope were still living and their respective satires much read and appreciated. Fielding chose to write on the book's title page that JOSEPH ANDREWS was "written in imitation of the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote." With that subtle hint, Fielding feels free to allow his hero to go off tilting at every object in his path but windmills. This tilting results in the kind of slapstick humor that most readers mean when they talk about how "funny" the book is. Yet, Fielding knew that humor could and should have a more serious aspect, which he saw as sober satire. For him, as for Swift, satire meant holding society up to a crooked mirror--sort of the kind that one sees at fun houses--and exposing by crooked exaggeration the misdeeds of that society. This concept of sober satire is hinted at in the person of Parson Adams, who also figures prominently right there on the title page with that little note about Cervantes. Parson Adams is Don Quixote reborn. He does ridiculous things for which the reader rightfully laughs at for that. Yet, Parson Adams has a more reflective side too. Though he is betrayed, he forgives. Though he is injured, he holds on to his innocence. And though he is hurt, he laughs. Compare his actions to the half dozen other parsons and what emerges is that these other parsons are licentuous, venal, and downright corrupt. Fielding was concerned with the same worry of every writer from Chaucer to himself: what can the ordinary man hope for when his supposed exemplars of virtue--the clergy--are unvirtuous? Well, in the satirical world of JOSEPH ANDREWS there was a little bit of an otherwise evil world that was evil free. When Fielding's readers laughed at the foibles of Andrews and Adams, their laughter was tempered by the realization that their funny universe was only a hairsbreath away from one was that tragic too.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the funniest books I've ever read! January 3, 2007

By silversurf

Format:Paperback

This fast-paced comic novel was written as a parody of another 18th century classic, the immensely popular Pamela. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, was a best selling novel by Fielding's comtemporary, Samuel Richardson. (Please see my other reviews for more about this). Although the language and social customs have changed in the 200 plus years since this book was written, there is enough universality to the comedy that modern readers won't mind missing a few of the jokes.

Although having read Pamela first will help you get some of the inside humor, Joseph Andrews can be read on its own as well. Fielding uses Richardson's more serious morality tale as a jumping-off point for a pretended sequel, in which Pamela has a brother who encounters many of the same situations as his more famous sister. While Pamela was pursued by an amorous and unscrupulous landowner, Joseph is chased by lecherous females who can't believe that he is serious about saving himself for marriage to his childhood sweetheart. The humor comes from the gender reversal, and from Fielding's no-holds-barred spoof of the manners (and lack thereof) of the fashionable upper classes. Joseph is a clear-headed, intelligent young man of the servant class, whose social superiors just can't stop being ridiculous at every opportunity. I won't go into plot details-they are mostly of the standard farce variety anyway. But the scenes and dialog are often so hilarious that it doesn't matter what the pretext is, you just have to suspend all critical judgement and laugh.

P.S. Shamela is included in this edition. It's a shorter spoof of Pamela, written as a bawdy series of letters in which the supposedly chaste and innocent heroine reveals her darker side. Not on a par with Joseph Andrews, but still pretty funny.