Joseph Andrews

Henry Fielding

Courier Corporation, 2001 - Fiction - 248 pages

Joseph Andrews refuses Lady Booby's advances, she discharges him, and Joseph — in the company of his old tutor, Parson Adams (one of the great comic figures of literature) — sets out from London to visit his sweetheart, Fanny. Along the way, the two travelers meet with a series of adventures — some hilarious, some heartstopping — in which through their own innocence and honesty they expose the hypocrisy and affectation of others. Joseph Andrews started out as a parody of Richardson's Pamela, but soon left that purpose behind and now is regarded as the first English realistic novel.

Contents

• CHAPTER I OF WRITING LIVES IN GENERAL AND PARTICULARLY OF PAMELA WITH A WORD BY THE BYE OF COLLEY CIBBER AN...: 1
• OF MR JOSEPH ANDREWS HIS BIRTH PARENTAGE EDUCATION AND GREAT ENDOWMENTS WITH A WORD OR TWO CONCERNING ...: 2
• OF MR ABRAHAM ADAMS THE CURATE MRS SLIPSLOP THE CHAMBERMAID AND OTHERS: 4
• WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THEIR JOURNEY TO LONDON: 7
• THE DEATH OF SIR THOMAS BOOBY WITH THE AFFECTIONATE AND MOURNFUL BEHAVIOUR OF HIS WIDOW AND THE GREAT PU...: 8
• HOW JOSEPH ANDREWS WRIT A LETTER TO HIS SISTER PAMELA: 10
• SAYINGS OF WISE MEN A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE LADY AND HER MAID AND A PANEGYRIC OR RATHER SATIRE ON THE PASSI...: 13
• IN WHICH AFTER SOME VERY FINE WRITING THE HISTORY GOES ON AND RELATES THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE LADY AND J...: 15
• WHAT PASSED BETWEEN THE LADY AND MRS SLIPSLOP IN WHICH WE PROPHESY THERE ARE SOME STROKES WHICH EVERY ON...: 19
• JOSEPH WRITES ANOTHER LETTER HIS TRANSACTIONS WITH MR PETER POUNCE ETC WITH HIS DEPARTURE FROM LADY BOOBY: 22
• OF SEVERAL NEW MATTERS NOT EXPECTED: 23
• CONTAINING MANY SURPRISING ADVENTURES WHICH JOSI Ill WDREWS MEl WITH ON I III ROAD SCARCE CREDIBLE TO THOSE W...: 25
• WHAT HAPPENED TO JOSEPH DURING HIS SICKNESS AT THE INN WITH THE CURIOUS DISCOURSE BETWEEN HIM AND MR BARNA...: 30
• BEING VERY FULL OF ADVENTURES WHICH SUCCEEDED EACH OTHER AT THE END: 33
• SHOWING HOW MRS TOWWOUSE WAS A LITTLE MOLLIFIED AND HOW OFFICIOUS MR BARNABAS AND THE SURGEON WERE TO P...: 36
• THE ESCAPE OF THE THIEF MR ADAMSS DISAPPOINTMENT THE ARRIVAL OF TWO VERY EXTRAORDINARY PERSONAGES AND TH...: 39
• A PLEASANT DISCOURSE BETWEEN THE TWO PARSONS AND THE BOOKSELLER WHICH WAS BROKE OFF BY AN UNLUCKY ACCID...: 46
• THE HISTORY OF BETTY THE CHAMBERMAID AND AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT OCCASIONED THE VIOLENT SCENE IN THE PRECEDING...: 50
• OF DIVISIONS IN AUTHORS: 53
• A SURPRISING INSTANCE OF MR ADAMSS SHORT MEMORY WITH THE UNFORTUNATE CONSEQUENCES WHICH IT BROUGHT ON JO...: 55
• THE OPINION OF TWO LAWYERS CONCERNING THE SAME GENTLEMAN WITH MR ADAMSS INQUIRY INTO THE RELIGION OF HIS ...: 58
• THE HISTORY OF LEONORA OR THE UNFORTUNATE JILT: 63
• A DREADFUL QUARREL WHICH HAPPENED AT THE INN WHERE THE COMPANY DINED WITH ITS BLOODY CONSEQUENCES TO MR ...: 74
• CONCLUSION OF THE UNFORTUNATE JILT: 80
• A VERY SHORT CHAPTER IN WHICH PARSON ADAMS WENT A GREAT WAY: 84
• A NOTABLE DISSERTATION BY MR ABRAHAM ADAMS WHEREIN THAT GENTLEMAN APPEARS IN A POLITICAL LIGHT: 86
• IN WHICH THE GENTLEMAN DESCANTS ON BRAVERY AND HEROIC VIRTUE TILL AN UNLUCKY ACCIDENT PUTS AN END TO THE ...: 88
• GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF THE STRANGE CATASTROPHE OF THE PRECEDING ADVENTURE WHICH DREW POOR ADAMS INTO FRESH...: 92
• WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM WHILE BEFORE THE JUSTICE A CHAPTER VERY FULL OF LEARNING: 95
• A VERY DELIGHTFUL ADVENTURE AS WELL TO THE PERSONS CONCERNED AS TO THE GOODNATURED READER: 100
• A DISSERTATION CONCERNING HIGH PEOPLE AND LOW PEOPLE WITH MRS SLIPSLOPS DEPARTURE IN NO VERY GOOD TEMPER O...: 104
• AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN PARSON ADAMS AND PARSON TRULLIBER: 108
• AN ADVENTURE THE CONSEQUENCE OF A NEW INSTANCE WHICH PARSON ADAMS GAVE OF HIS FORGETFULNESS: 113
• A VERY CURIOUS ADVENTURE IN WHICH MR ADAMS CAVE A MUCH GREATER INSTANCE OF THE HONEST SIMPLICITY OF HIS HE...: 115
• A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM ADAMS AND HIS HOST WHICH BY THE DISAGREEMENT IN THEIR OPINIONS SEEMED TO T...: 121
• MATTER PREFATORY IN PRAISE OF BIOGRAPHY: 126
• A NIGHTSCENE WHEREIN SEVERAL WONDERFUL ADVENTURES BEFEL ADAMS AND HIS FELLOWTRAVELLERS: 130
• IN WHICH THE GENTLEMAN RELATES THE HISTORY OF HIS LIFE: 137
• A DESCRIPTION OF MR WILSONS WAY OF LIVING THE TRAGICAL ADVENTURE OF THE DOG AND OTHER GRAVE MATTERS: 155
• A DISPUTATION ON SCHOOLS HELD ON THE ROAD BY MR ABRAHAM ADAMS AND JOSEPH AND A DISCOVERY NOT UNWELCOME ...: 158
• MORAL REFLECTIONS BY JOSEPH ANDREWS WITH THE HUNTING ADVENTURE AND PARSON ADAMSS MIRACULOUS ESCAPE: 161
• A SCENE OF ROASTING VERY NICELY ADAPTED TO THE PRESENT TASTE AND TIMES: 168
• WHICH SOME READERS WILL THINK TOO SHORT AND OTHERS TOO LONG: 174
• CONTAINING AS SURPRISING AND BLOODY ADVENTURES AS CAN BE FOUND IN THIS OR PERHAPS ANY OTHER AUTHENTIC HISTO...: 177
• A DISCOURSE BETWEEN THE POET AND THE PLAYER OF NO OTHER USE IN THIS HISTORY BUT TO DIVERT THE READER: 181
• CONTAINING THE EXHORTATIONS OF PARSON ADAMS TO HIS FRIEND IN AFFLICTION CALCULATED FOR THE INSTRUCTION AND ...: 184
• MORE ADVENTURES WHICH WE HOPE WILL AS MUCH PLEASE AS SURPRISE THE READER: 186
• A CURIOUS DIALOGUE WHICH PASSED BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM ADAMS AND MR PETER POUNCE BETTER WORTH READING THAN...: 191
• THE ARRIVAL OF LADY BOOBY AND THE REST AT BOOBYHALL: 194
• A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MR ABRAHAM ADAMS AND LADY BOOBY: 197
• WHAT PASSED BETWEEN THE LADY AND LAWYER SCOUT: 199
• A SHORT CHAFrER BUT VERY FULL OF MATTER PARTICULARLY THE ARRIVAL OF MR BOOBY AND HIS LADY: 202
• CONTAINING JUSTICE BUSINESS CURIOUS PRECEDENTS OF DEPOSITIONS AND OTHER MATTERS NECESSARY TO BE PERUSED BY ...: 203
• OF WHICH YOU ARE DESIRED TO READ NO MORE THAN YOU LIKE: 207
• PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS THE LIKE NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY LIGHT FRENCH ROMANCE MR BOOBYS CRAVE ADVICE TO JO...: 211
• A DISCOURSE WHICH HAPPENED BETWEEN MR ADAMS MRS ADAMS JOSEPH AND FANNY WITH SOME BEHAVIOUR OF MR ADAMS ...: 217
• A VISIT WHICH THE POLITE LADY BOOBY AND HER POLITE ERIEND PAID TO THE PARSON: 221
• THE HISTORY OF TWO FRIENDS WHICH MAY AFFORD AN USEFUL LESSON TO ALL THOSE PERSONS WHO HAPPEN TO TAKE UP TH...: 224
• IN WHICH THE HISTORY IS CONTINUED: 228
• WHERE THE GOODNATURED READER WILL SEE SOMETHING WHICH WILL GIVE HIM NO GREAT PLEASURE: 231
• THE HISTORY RETURNING TO THE LADY BOOBY GIVES SOME ACCOUNT OF THE TERRIBLE CONFLICT IN HER BREAST BETWEEN L...: 233
• CONTAINING SEVERAL CURIOUS NIGHTADVENTURES IN WHICH MR ADAMS FELL INTO MANY HAIRBREADTH SCAPES PARTLY O...: 236
• THE ARRIVAL OF GAFFAR AND GAMMAR ANDREWS WITH ANOTHER PERSON NOT MUCH EXPECTED AND A PERFECT SOLUTION O...: 240
• BEING THE LAST IN WHICH THIS TRUE HISTORY IS BROUGHT TO A HAPPY CONCLUSION: 244

About the author

Henry Fielding, 1707 - 1754 A succcessful playwright in his twenties, Henry Fielding turned to the study of law and then to journalism, fiction, and a judgeship after his Historical Register, a political satire on the Walpole government, contributed to the censorship of plays that put him out of business. As an impoverished member of the upper classes, he knew the country squires and the town nobility; as a successful young playwright, the London jet set; as a judge at the center of London, the city's thieves, swindlers, petty officials, shopkeepers, and vagabonds. As a political journalist (editor-author of The Champion, 1739-1741; The True Patriot, 1745-1746; The Jacobite's Journal, 1747-1748; The Covent-Garden Journal, 1752), he participated in argument and intrigue over everything from London elections to national policy. He knowledgeably attacked and defended a range of politicians, from ward heelers to the Prince of Wales. When Fielding undertook writing prose fiction to ridicule the simple morality of Pamela by Samuel Richardson, he first wrote the hilarious burlesque Shamela (1741). However, he soon found himself considering all the forces working on humans, and in Joseph Andrews (1742) (centering on his invented brother of Pamela), he played with the patterns of Homer, the Bible, and Cervantes to create what he called "a comic epic poem in prose." His preface describing this new art form is one of the major documents in literary criticism of the novel. Jonathan Wild, a fictional rogue biography of a year later, plays heavily with ironic techniques that leave unsettled Fielding's great and recurring theme: the difficulty of uniting goodness, or an outflowing love of others, with prudence in a world where corrupted institutions support divisive pride rather than harmony and self-fulfillment. In his masterpiece Tom Jones (1749), Fielding not only faces this issue persuasively but also shows for the first time the possibility of bringing a whole world into an artistic unity, as his model Homer had done in verse. Fielding develops a coherent and centered sequence of events-something Congreve had done casually on a small scale in Incognita 60 years before. In addition he also relates the plot organically to character and theme, by which he gives us a vision of the archetypal good person (Tom) on a journey toward understanding. Every act by every character in the book reflects the special and typical psychology of that character and the proper moral response. In Tom Jones, Fielding affirms the existence of an order under the surface of chaos. In his last novel, Amelia (1751), which realistically examines the misery of London, he can find nothing reliable except the prudent good heart, and that only if its possessor escapes into the country. Fielding based the title character on his second wife, with whom he was deeply in love. However, ill himself, still saddened by the deaths of his intensely loved first wife and daughter, and depressed by a London magistrate's endless toil against corruption, Fielding saw little hope for goodness in that novel or in his informal Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1755). Shortly after traveling to Lisbon for his health, Fielding died at the age of 47, having proved to his contemporaries and successors that the lowly novel was capable of the richest achievements of art.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Joseph Andrews; Dover thrift editions
• Author: Henry Fielding
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Courier Corporation, 2001
• ISBN: 0486415880, 9780486415888
• Length: 248 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics