Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding

A Brief Introduction to Joseph Andrews:

The full title of Henry Fielding’s first novel Joseph Andrews is The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of his friend Mr. Abraham Adams. It was among the first novels in the English language. The novel appeared in the year 1742, two years after Richardson’s publication of Pamela. During the period Fielding was suffering from financial hardships and his uncomfortable financial circumstances led him to choose to write a novel for material gain. At the same time, it was also prompted by a desire to present a new point of view on the art of writing a novel. Fielding’s views differed radically from Richardson’s. Joseph Andrews was, in a way, a consequence of Richardson’s Pamela. The novel beings as a direct parody of Richardson’s Pamela, with Joseph (Pamela’s brother) fleeing from attempted seduction by his employer, Lady Booby. This turnabout, with the man being seduced by the woman, is a good illustration of the occasionally riotous and earthy sense of humor evident in Fielding. Halfway through the novel, Fielding seems to forget he is writing a satire on Pamela and writes an excellent novel in its own light. The novel represents the coming together of the two competing aesthetics of eighteenth-century literature: the mock-heroic and neoclassical approach of Augustans such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift; and the popular, domestic prose fiction of novelists such as Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson.