Joseph Andrews, Vol. 1
Joseph Andrews helped invent the English novel. When Henry Fielding published thiswicked, laughing satire in 1742, he was doing something entirely new: writing comic prose fiction that took real people and real stakes seriously, while simultaneously dismantling the moral pomposity of his rivals. The story follows Joseph, a handsome young footman who refuses the sexual advances of his employer Lady Booby and is promptly dismissed. He hits the road with Parson Adams, a gloriously impractical clergyman whose divine optimism and absent-minded generosity make him one of literature's great comic creations. Together they wander toward Joseph's sweetheart Fanny, encountering thieves, false priests, lascivious squires, and various specimens of eighteenth-century English hypocrisy. What makes the book endure is Fielding's dual gift: he wrote prose that crackles with wit while also creating characters who genuinely feel. Joseph's virtue isn't a joke, even when the novel is laughing at the very idea of virtue. It's for readers who want to understand where the novel came from, and who appreciate satire that stings without cruelty.
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“It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts.””
— Henry Fielding
“To whom nothing is given, of him can nothing be required.””
— Henry Fielding
“Adams dealt him so sound a Compliment over his Face with his Fist, that the Blood immediately gushed out of his Nose in a Stream. The Host being unwilling to be outdone in Courtesy, especially by a Person of Adams's Figure, returned the Favour with so much Gratitude, that the Parson's Nostrils likewise began to look a little redder than usual.””
— Henry Fielding
“Nobody scarce doth any good, yet they all agree in praising those who do. Indeed, it is strange that all men should consent in commending goodness, and no man endeavour to deserve that commendation; whilst, on the contrary, all rail at wickedness, and all are as eager to be what they abuse.””
— Henry Fielding
“He said "They were heartily welcome to his poor cottage", and turning to Mr. Didapper, cried out, 'Non mea renidet in domo lacunar.' The beau answered, "He did not understand Welsh"; at which the parson stared and made no reply.””
— Henry Fielding
“...but doth not the person who expends vast sums in the furniture of his house or the ornaments of his person, who consumes much time and employs great pains in dressing himself, or who thinks himself paid for self-denial, labour, or even villany, by a title or a ribbon, sacrifice as much to vanity as the poor wit who is desirous to read you his poem or his play?””
— Henry Fielding
“...the pleasures of the world are chiefly folly, and the business of it mostly knavery, and both nothing better than vanity; the men of pleasure tearing one another to pieces from the emulation of spending money, and the men of business from envy in getting it.””
— Henry Fielding
“Why, then,' answered the squire, 'I am very sorry you have given him so much learning; for, if he cannot get his living by that, it will rather spoil him for anything else; and your other son, who can hardly write his name, will do more at ploughing and sowing, and is in a better condition, than he.' And indeed so it proved; for the poor lad, not finding friends to maintain him in his learning, as he had expected, and being unwilling to work, fell to drinking, though he was a very sober lad before; and in a short time, partly with grief, and partly with good liquor, fell into a consumption, and died.””
— Henry Fielding
