Joseph Andrews and Shamela

by Henry Fielding, Martin G. Battestin (Editor)

Henry Fielding (1707-54) turned to novel-writing when his outspoken satirical plays so annoyed Walpole's Government that a new Licensing Act was introduced to drive him from the stage.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, 18th Century, Literature, School, Humor, British Literature

370 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1742

About the author

Henry Fielding was an English dramatist, journalist and novelist. The son of an army lieutenant and a judge's daughter, he was educated at Eton School and the University of Leiden before returning to England where he wrote a series of farces, operas and light comedies.

Fielding formed his own company and was running the Little Theatre, Haymarket, when one of his satirical plays began to upset the government. The passing of the Theatrical Licensing Act in 1737 effectively ended Fielding's career as a playwright.

In 1739 Fielding turned to journalism and became editor of The Champion. He also began writing novels, including: The Adventures of Joseph Andrews (1742) and Jonathan Wild (1743).

Fielding was made a justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex in 1748. He campaigned against legal corruption and helped his half-brother, Sir John Fielding, establish the Bow Street Runners.

In 1749 Fielding's novel, The History of Tom Jones was published to public acclaim. Critics agree that it is one of the greatest comic novels in the English language. Fielding followed this success with another well received novel, Amelia (1751).

Fielding continued as a journalist and his satirical journal, Covent Garden, continued to upset those in power. Throughout his life, Fielding suffered from poor health and by 1752 he could not move without the help of crutches. In an attempt to overcome his health problems, Henry Fielding went to live in Portugal but this was not successful and he died in Lisbon in 1754.

Reviews

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven't read Tom Jones, think of Joseph Andrews as a warm-up or apprenticeship to that great, vast comic masterpiece: all the elements of the former are present in the latter, if in truncated, embryonic form, but the narrative voice (wise, urbane, latitudinarian, compassionate-but-ironic, suffer-no-fools-witty—I could go on!) is the same in both books and is simply not to be missed.

If you have read Tom Jones already, think of this volume as the bread pudding (along with a glass or three of port to facilitate digestion) after the hearty meal* of potted woodcock/partridge, blackbird pie, boiled beef and cabbage, a bone of bacon, sweetmeats, a large loaf and cheese, ale and whatever "small beer" is—about all that you'll be able to find on that island after Brexit in other words*.

Shamela, though? Kind of amusing if you're into parody (as I was in the 9th grade, when National Lampoon's Bored of the Rings revealed their sophomoric glories to me), but thankfully very, very brief (I think you had to be there, for the publicity monster which was Richardson's unctuous Pamela I mean, though the Intro suggests that Fielding didn't hate the book so much as what went on around it—so maybe I'll have the temerity to get to that book later this year).

Thus begins my summer to-and-fro-ing between the 18C and 20C. Onward to Delillo's End Zone and Boswell's Life of Johnson!

*Note#1: "for Hunger is better than a French cook" (361)
**Note#2: (not really a spoiler, but) The whole book takes place either at an ale-house, on the way to one, on the way from one, or at some squire-or-other's table, pretty much...

[MJ Nicholls]

The tumultuous magnificence of Tom Jones cannot be toppled by this creaky upstart. Wildly undisciplined preview of that masterpiece that nary approaches its heights. Read up to p.120.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think it is possible for me to review this book without thinking of "Pamela." Really, there is no contest. True, Richardson's prose is a little more approachable on a sentence level, but Fielding isn't generally presenting the thoughts of a naive girl. Beyond that, Fielding wins hands down. He isn't trite, his characters feel more fully human, and he's funny. More important, he only tells the things of interest that happen and doesn't stretch them out to four or five times the length of that interest. And, when the story stops, Fielding does as well. He doesn't keep talking for 150 pages after the story is over. If there were an election today, I'd choose Fielding over Richardson.

[Eric]

One constant of the Life of Johnson is Johnson's praise of Richardson at the expense of Fielding. I've read neither but the tone of Johnson's appraisal (one is all noble sentiment, the other low raillery that teaches bad morals) is quaint and hectoring, and makes me want to read Fielding.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read Samuel Richardson's "Pamela" first. This is the hilarious spoof of that famous work. It's a literary geek necessity.

[Kazima · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book the second time around because I could understand a lot of the literary and mythological references much better. NOTE: Because this book is so old, I would recommend the Oxford World's Classics edition which has a great introduction and explanatory notes. I haven't read Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded, and I don't think that it is really necessary, at least not if you bother to find out about it and the feud between Richardson and Fielding (well explained in the OWC edition).

It took a lot of patience getting through this book, and it is not the kind of book you can/should read just before falling asleep. However, what makes it tedious to read at times is also what makes it exceptionally interesting. I love how Fielding isn't just telling a story, but is also dappling into literature analysis and philosophy. The story is a great comedy, or rather "comic Epic-poem", and the book as a whole is a great piece of literature.

[willowbiblio · Rating 1 out of 5]

“I can’t see why her having no Virtue should be a Reason against my having any: or why, because I am a Man, or because I am poor, my Virtue must be subservient to her pleasures.”
—————————-
I thought Shamela was much better written, and thankfully more succinct than Pamela (Richardson). However, it’s still didn’t bring me any enjoyment. I’m actually a big fan of Fielding’s other work. I truly enjoyed Tom Jones, so it was a surprise to dislike this so much.

To compare this to Don Quixote is to do a disservice to that comic masterpiece. Probably the most comedic moment was Adams realizing he didn’t have the pamphlets because his wife had packed more clothes.

Honestly, I was so bored by this that I skimmed the second half. Maybe this was partly because it was reliant on Pamela, a work that I really didn’t enjoy. At times it felt like Fielding was trying to comment on the injustice and inequality based on class and wealth, but to me it fell flat. Maybe this whole book just went way over my head – that is entirely possible.

I think I only feel bad about not liking it because it was a gift. But I want other reviewers to be equally honest, and this is what I mean by reading is subjective. This may be someone else’s most favorite ever!

[Callie · Rating 2 out of 5]

3 stars for shamela (iconic) and 1 star for JA (so boring that I wished I was reading pamela)

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few great books can have inspired two other great works of literature that were written for the purpose of ridiculing it. There can also be few works of literature that helped to inspire another author of conservative leanings to contribute towards one of the greatest innovations in English literature. However, this was to be the fate of Pamela, an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, which was to provide the springboard for the two works of Henry Fielding contained in this book.

Richardson’s novel comprises a series of letters written by a chaste and virtuous servant called Pamela Andrews who resists the attempts to seduce her, sometimes forcibly, by her employer, Mr B. The book was a huge success in its day and its puritanical morals were greatly admired. It also proved to be an important landmark in the development of the British novel, a medium that barely existed at the time.

However, there was a backlash by a number of writers who sought to expose the book’s annoyingly priggish and hypocritical morality, and the most memorable works were by Henry Fielding. The first of Fielding’s large-scale works satirising Pamela was called Shamela and this was a short and brilliantly scathing work that followed the basic narrative drive of Pamela whilst subverting it.

In this version of events, we learn that Pamela’s real name was Shamela, and that Mr B was known as Lord Booby. The work is preceded by the letters of a shocked member of the clergy who has discovered Shamela’s true character and proceeds to lay out the letters that she really wrote in order to expose her.

Lord Booby proves to be an appropriate name, as Fielding’s work depicts him as the victim, and Shamela as the predator. Here Shamela is seen as a corrupt and flighty Miss, conducting a secret affair with a clergyman, and deliberately withholding her ‘Vartue’ (virtue) from Lord Booby as a device to lure the lusty aristocrat into marrying her since this is the only means by which he can persuade her to satisfy his desires.

Indeed it has been suggested that Fielding’s work is merely another way of looking at the same events as Pamela, but with a more cynical eye. It is certainly true that in Pamela the heroine is willing to hold out on her virtue until she receives an offer of marriage, at which point her seducer suddenly becomes a desirable husband. Hence Pamela’s chastity, like that of Shamela, is a commodity that can be bought with the right offer and her pretences to virtue are a mere humbug.

Of course Richardson never intended this reading although there are passages in Pamela, which suggest an uneasy awareness of this possible interpretation. Shamela merely strips away the layers of hypocritical virtue and shows us the economic calculation beneath. It is funny, crudely vulgar and unsubtle, but this makes it the perfect antidote to the solemnly virtuous prosings of Richardson’s work.

However Fielding did not stop there. Indeed Pamela even inspired Fielding to take Richardson on in the field on novel-writing, and in the process Fielding was to make a major contribution to the development of English Literature, almost by way of a knee-jerk reaction to Richardson’s novel.

The satire against Pamela continued into Joseph Andrews, Fielding’s first novel. The hero as his name suggests is a brother to Pamela, and indeed we see him writing to Pamela. Later Pamela and Lord Booby (as Fielding continues to call him) make an appearance in the book and Pamela is notably down on the idea of Joseph marrying beneath him, even though she has also married out of her class. Hence she is once more seen as hypocritical and negative.

However, the emphasis of Fielding’s humour here is on Joseph, who begins the book as Pamela in reverse. This time the book follows a virtuous footman scorning the advances of Lady Booby, and a number of other lusty women who seek to take his virtue. By changing the gender around, Fielding has a good deal of fun since the idea of a man protecting his honour against female seducers seems obviously more ludicrous, and serves to further render the ideas in Richardson’s novels as silly.

However one of the curious aspects of Joseph Andrews (and later Tom Jones, Fielding’s greatest novel) is that Fielding’s attitudes towards chastity are not as diametrically opposed to Richardson’s as they first appear. Joseph Andrews may appear ludicrous in his emphasis on ‘honour’ and virtue, but it seems likely that Fielding supports Joseph in his pursuit of virtue. He is similarly concerned with Fanny’s attempts to prevent herself from being raped by a number of male characters.

The female characters in the book who act without chastity are often portrayed in a bad light. Lady Booby and Mrs Slipslop are unpleasant women who are unscrupulous and immoral in other ways, and not only in their willingness to seduce Joseph. The servant Betty provides us with a better model. She is the only person to help the stricken Joseph after he is robbed. However after an unsuccessful attempt to seduce Joseph, she instead sleeps with her employer and loses her place. Her actions only lead to trouble too therefore.

This tells us more about the emphasis of Fielding’s concern with chastity, male and female. Fielding does believe in the importance of chastity, male and female. He is sympathetic to Joseph’s wish to save himself for his sweetheart, Fanny Goodwill, and he is therefore right not to complicate his life through infidelities with his corrupt employer, Mrs Slipslop or the good-hearted but flighty Betty (who has already had a bout of venereal disease).

Another model of acting without sexual restraint lies in the story of Mr Wilson, a man who led a wild life and had a number of involvements with women before settling down happily with his wife. The other additional tale interpolated into the book deals with a jilt who leaves a decent partner for a less honourable man, and ends up unmarried as a result. There is a price to pay for immodest or flighty behaviour.

However, while Fielding shares the sense that unchastity is a sin to be avoided he clearly sets less stock on it than Richardson. For Fielding it is a mild sin and sometimes even an excess of good nature. Hence Mr Wilson is not damned forever by his early life and Betty remains one of the better characters in the book, who suffers from her lack of restraint, not from a bad nature.

It has been suggested that Fielding’s opposition to Pamela comes from conservative motives. Richardson’s book has a potentially subversive element in that it sets a servant’s honour against that of her master and ends in a resolution that involves her marrying above her station.

This may be true, but we may set against this argument the fact that Fielding himself went on to marry one of his servants. Was Fielding a hypocrite, or did he change his mind later? I think not, since Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones both show heroes who struggle against the cruelty of a society that does not allow people to marry beneath them. Fielding opts for the conservative conclusion of ensuring that discoveries are made that put the lovers back on an equal footing but the point has been made.

While Joseph Andrews certainly devotes quite a few pages to its attack on the content of Pamela, it may also been as a reaction against the style of Pamela, and in this way Fielding takes the work off in a very different direction that makes Joseph Andrews into something much more than a satire of another writer’s work. While Richardson stuck to an epistolary style, Fielding chose to write a proper connected storyline held together by a semi-omniscient narrator, rather than the potentially unreliable first person narrator of Pamela.

After the Pamela send-up in the first Book, the remainder of the novel moves on to other matters. The hero now is Parson Abraham Adams, a benign but naïve clergyman who helps Joseph and Fanny to get back home, amidst a series of picaresque misadventures in the manner of Don Quixote (whom Adams clearly resembles).

This is a very different form of novel from Pamela and it allows Fielding to turn his satirical aim at a number of other targets. By putting a parson at the centre of his book, Fielding is able to offer up his own opinions about the role of the clergy. Parson Adams is certainly a foolish man in some ways, blinded by his own good nature from seeing the wicked wrongdoings of others, easily gulled, and trying unsuccessfully to get his sermons published, even though nobody would want to buy them.

Nonetheless, Adams offers a better view of how the clergy should live and what they should preach in Fielding’s opinion. For example, Adams argues that the clergy should preach the importance of actions over faith, a doctrine contrary to some Protestant traditions. Hence while he meets a number of clergymen along the way who are selfish and refuse to help him, he remains an active and muscular Christian, sometimes literally so, as when he saves Fanny from assault.

The other important aspect of Adams’ attitude towards religion is his emphasis on the importance of a clergy that is not concerned with wealth. Adams lives in comparative poverty for most of the book, with his appearance causing others to disrespect him. Indeed he is appalled by the excesses of wealth in the church and he stands in opposition to other clerical characters in the book who have been corrupted by money and comfort.

This emphasis on the corrupting power of wealth is an important concern in Joseph Andrews and Fielding often shows us the bad behaviour of powerful and influential members of society. Lady Booby and Mrs Slipslop seek to act against Joseph and Fanny to get them expelled from the local area. A corrupt lord seeks to humiliate the travellers and to rape Fanny.

Set against this we see examples of virtue in the poor even in those from whom we may not expect to see it. I have mentioned how Betty showed kindness to Joseph when her masters would not. Similarly when Joseph is robbed and loses even his clothes, he is denied access to a Coach by ladies whose morals are more concerned with avoiding a naked man than helping a traveller in distress. It is left to the Postilion (“A Lad who hath been since transported for robbing a Hen-roost” as Fielding informs us in parenthesis) to provide Joseph with a cloak. Later when Adams fails to get help from the wealthy clergyman Trulliber he is helped instead by a Pedlar. The wealthy are frequently corrupt, Fielding says, and the poor are frequently virtuous.

This can also be seen in Fielding’s depiction of the law in Joseph Andrews. Fielding was an enthusiastic advocate for the law and he even contributed to the establishment of the Bow Street Runners, an organisation that set the model for the later establishment of a police force. The world of Joseph Andrews is one where the law cannot be counted on. The man who robs Joseph is able to escape justice by bribing a constable.

Later when Adams saves Fanny from rape, the two of them only narrowly escape being prosecuted by her attacker, who is taking advantage of a self-important and biased judge. Later still Joseph and Fanny face the ire of the law again for no greater offence than the trumped up charge of picking a twig, when Lady Booby wishes to act against them.

Fielding does not advocate any significant change to the law here. He may make pious assertions about the vanity of wealth or the virtue of poverty, but he is not seriously proposing to change the social system. He identifies the injustice of the class system in preventing marriages, but does not offer any serious suggestion that this is wrong. At best he suggests ameliorative changes.

However, any conservative of imagination cannot help undermining the very values they defend. The conservative who lacks compassion is likely to leave the reader unsympathetic to the hard values they propose. A compassionate and empathic conservative cannot help leaving us with a sense that this is a dangerous world in need of more reform than the writer perhaps intends us to see.

Fielding belongs to the latter group. He may defend the system of which he is part, but the world that he portrays in Joseph Andrews is corrupt to the core with innocent people constantly at risk of being robbed, raped or imprisoned, falling foul of both criminals and the law, whilst the wealthy are free to engage in corrupter sins.

Similarly whilst Fielding promotes good Christian values, we do not have a sense that this is a world in which those values truly prevail. They do in the book but only by virtue of Fielding’s god-like power as a narrator which piles on enough contrivances to rescue our heroes. We know that if this was reality, the injustices would not be so addressed. Hence it is only the indulgence of Fielding that allows a Holy Fool like Parson Adams to escape the full consequences of his gullibility.

Fielding and Richardson sought to establish two different styles of book writing that were to influence future generations of novelists. It is often felt that Richardson won the battle for the future, with a style of writing that laid more on characterisation, seriousness of purpose and a concentrated storyline.

It is certainly true that Fielding’s style is not always easy for the modern reader to appreciate. There are some aspects of style that make this so. Fielding follows the offputting habit still prevalent in Germany of capitalising every noun, and he does not divide paragraphs in the modern style, so we need to read long paragraphs in which the dialogue of several characters is incorporated, sometimes without quotations marks.

Other aspects that make Fielding sometimes unappealing is his use of broad and vulgar humour and lashings of unsubtle irony, which contrasts with his use of very learned and classical allusions, gained from an education that people no longer receive nowadays. Fielding’s characters also have little depth. We remember nothing of Joseph Andrews except his priggish focus on honour. After that he becomes so bland and generic a hero that we hardly notice him. The other characters are similarly defined by only one or two characteristics.

However, there are aspects of Fielding’s tradition of writing that have survived the test of time better. There have been plenty of picaresque and journey novels since, and many works are written via an omnipotent, omniscient narrator controlling events, though not always with the benevolence of Fielding. His abandonment of the epistolary style in favour of a clearer narrative, interspersed with other narrative devices, is also closer to the modern novel than that of Richardson’s, not to mention his abandonment of the other writer’s Puritanical standards of moral virtue.

While both writers have their merits, I do not personally have much relish for Richardson’s proselytising and I prefer the vulgar warmth and humanity of Fielding.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richardson seems to me to be a prig; Defoe completely insufferable; Swift and Pope perhaps too smarmy even for me. And I like smarm. According to the introduction Fielding's meant to be more conservative than Richardson (these novels both take their main characters from Richardson's 'Pamela'), but as far as I can tell, this is an almost meaningless statement. Unlike Richardson and his characters, Fielding and his are warm and kind; Fielding attacks the stupidities of human kind that need attacking, and he's smarter than everyone. As for the story, it must be better if you've read 'Pamela,' but since that's almost impossible to do, I recommend just skipping to 'Joseph Andrews' and getting to know a couple of wonderful people.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fielding's (mis)reading of Pamela is simultaneously hilariously funny and deeply misogynistic. And the way he alters the emerging form of the novel to suit his own theatricality, away from Richardson's intense, claustrophobic interiority, is fascinating. And I always love his energetic experiments in metanarrative and the way in which his narrator becomes almost a character in his own right, actively intervening in the narrative, teaching his reader how to engage with the book, and theorizing the writing and reading of fiction as he goes.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dreadful. Boring. Another one of those books they force English students to read. They are both parodies of Pamela, which is also irritating. I could only force myself to read volume 1 of Joseph Andrews because it was so sleep inducing.

[Dan Schwent · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a reading assignment from my then girlfriend during her 19th century novels class. It was an interesting read. Parson Adams overshadows the title character by miles, though.

[Sabine · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5 stars, ultimate average rating. Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, just felt very ‘meh’ about it. Not a book I’ll remember or reread...

[Indah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joseph Andrews 3.5 stars
Shamela 4.5 stars

Shamela might just be my favourite parody ever. Thank you Henry Fielding for pointing out the lovely hypocrisy of Pamela, laughed my head off

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book made me want Fahrenheit 451 to become reality

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t think you could read Shamela without having first read Pamela and truly enjoy the variety of digs Fielding makes at Richardson. Joseph Andrews might be read with almost no knowledge of Pamela and throughly enjoyed. Though I must say, it is entirely imperfect. The structure and pacing is as bad as that of the author he pokes fun at, but it’s actually a very funny and clever story in its own right, and if you’ve read Tom Jones, it will be extremely interesting - you can clearly see how Fielding came up with the idea for Tom Jones while making fun of Richardson’s Pamela. ‘Whoever heard of a man’s virtue!’

[Anna Potzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

You should probably read Richardson’s Pamela first, but this story is not exactly a sequel. I love Parson Adams and the whole lower class gang trying to just survive and like get married. Let them vibe and please stop trying to sexually assault your “inferior” servants is the message I have for the antagonists. Also making Mr. B. and his family’s last name Booby is a stroke of genius.
I finally finished all of the literary criticism in the back as well, which I love in these Norton Critical Editions.

[nora · Rating 2 out of 5]

No idea what to make of the ending

[Emily Strom · Rating 3 out of 5]

*2.5/5

The redeeming factor of this book is that I sometimes did catch myself laughing out loud at the utter absurdity of some of the plot points, and that is a win because school books aren't normally *that* funny. I also enjoyed the mixed narrative style as the narrator would sometimes break the fourth wall and directly addresses the reader. Finally, I felt cultured when reading Middlemarch because I actually know who Fielding is when the characters reference him :)

Now for some things I hate about this book:
- the capitalization of almost every noun
- the extensive repetition of plot points
- (related to the above) the number of times I had to read about attempted rapes
- the lack of real character development
- all the satire (but that is definitely a me problem because I am just tired of reading satire since I've read so much of it for this class)

[Hannah Polley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is comprised of two short stories, 'Shamela' and 'Joseph Andrews'.

'Shamela' is based on the book 'Pamela' and I do think reading it first would help. This is a very short and bawdy parody of 'Pamela' told through letters between Pamela and her mother. It is funny but probably only if you have read 'Pamela'.

'Joseph Andrews' is still a short story but a bit longer than 'Pamela' and Fielding has created a character of Pamela's brother for his protagonist in this. Joseph Andrews is very much a male version of the original Pamela so again I think you need to read 'Pamela' to understand this fully. It was funny in a few places but I struggled to stay interested.

[Angelina · Rating 3 out of 5]

My best consolation for reading this book was knowing I got to count it towards my Goodreads Reading Challenge.

Honestly? 2.5 stars. There are a couple of REALLY funny scenes in here. The heroic epic writing in the dog chase scene was so good I cried (laughing). However, I'd estimate they make up about 20 pages of the 334. So....maybe read and skip? There are little headings at the start of each chapter which indicate what happens in the chapter, and some of them are obvious skips, though some of them seem like a skip but have a really good part. So skim?

Or you could just ask me to tell you about the funny scenes and give it a miss. :)

[andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

TERMINADO AL FIN. No le quiero dar ni nota porque ha sido un suplicio. Entre que el autor imita a Cervantes y que está todo lleno de discursos morales, se hace denso no, lo siguiente. Encima el personaje que es discurso por aquí, discurso por allá, luego no hace lo que predica. La trama muy random, con demasiadas casualidades y personajes nuevos por doquier. Sé que hay que tener en cuenta la época en que fue escrito, pero no me ha gustado nada. Mi profesora de literatura tiene mucho que ver, el examen va a ser super divertido. Solo una última cosa: todxs lxs que leyeron este libro como si nada en el siglo xviii tienen mi total admiración.

[Lara · Rating 1 out of 5]

So far, I don't like this book much. It's slow and overly written. I also don't care for his random interjections of nonsense. I hope no one asks me about this in my comp exams.

Me liking this book is just not going to work. I hate how slowly the book is as well as the virtuous messages throughout the enitre novel. I personally believe that the world would have been a better place without Joseph Andrews, Pamela, Shamela, and Anti-Pamela. If you don't like 18th century literature, don't read this.

[Zoë · Rating 1 out of 5]

Better than Pamela but only because it‘s a lot shorter ans less tedious. Though, I dislike Pamela and Shamela for pretty different reasons. Joseph Andrews - as far as I can tell because I haven‘t actually read the whole thing - is almost decent, though. Might just be my perception of it inbetween Pamela and Shamela.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

From this book I learned that attractive women in the 18c were in constant danger of being groped or abducted, that reading Aeschylus does not make you an expert in irony, and that you should always be suspicious of the identity of your parents.

[Isabelle M · Rating 3 out of 5]

IM FREEE!!! FINALLY FINISHED

[Matthew Mendenhall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look - It’s a fine book, a Classic, a precursor to realist novels which embrace characters and humanity with realistic portrayals. It made Fielding’s Shamela a better novella. It’s probably better than Richardson’s novels (I could probably just say it is better than Richardson’s Pamela even though I haven’t read it). It’s good if you’re capable of reading it from the lens of the 18th century’s delusional almost psychopathic obsession with virgin women that gets old really quickly. Not withstanding that feature of Joseph and Fanny’s storyline, feminine sexuality gets a very fair shake through its supporting characters. Betty the Chambermaid in Book I comes to mind. Mrs. Adams makes a fierce statement about the absurd moralizing of Anglican parishes when it comes to sex and married life - Of course women want to be fully loved by their husbands, and if their husbands are any good, they’ll want to fully love their wives. Fielding is pretty strong about his opinion of Matthew 5 as it relates to marriage and British society’s mischaracterization of it. If Jesus gave his life in full passion and sacrifice for the church - why can’t husbands do the same for their wives?
I just can’t overlook that this book took me weeks too long to read. It’s chapters regurgitate similar themes and scenes about sexuality, chastity, and rape over and over again with little variation. I hated that because Joseph was afraid of Fanny’s potential to losing her virginity through rape that I was manipulated through plot to pretty much feel the same way. It did open my eyes to the total commitment to theme and form that classical novels take on since it is more accessible in length than a Don Quixote might be.

[Andrew Noselli]

Regarding the novel Joseph Andrews, so little happens during this story that I suspect this was one of the primary texts that Laurence Sterne meant to satirize by writing Tristram Shandy where, famously, it takes until well-night 200 pages for the main character to reach the age of 18 months. Flash forward to the twentieth century and you can see the beat writer William S. Burroughs celebrating in his interviews his ability to go to the mini-aggressive expense of taking no less than an hour and a half to pick up a cup of water and bring it to his lips. Ah, how refreshing it is to go back to the much simpler time of the novels of Henry Fielding, as Van Morrison put it, a time "when life made more sense."

Regarding the brief novel Shamela, I think it is worthwhile to consider this book noteworthy for it inaugurated the practice of writing-as-game, as Fielding spins his novel's theme into a textual hoax in the style of a parody. Not only that but, in its reconfiguration of the alchemical romantic sense of Samuel Richardson's Pamela, it was a send-up of what Fielding saw as the pretensions of the pre-modern epistolary novel and the reading public who sought consolation for the failed romances of their lives by reading literary works such as this one. Surely Fielding was right to lambast Richardson's novel, which was seen fit as providing 'the only education fathers owe their daughters.' As the old slogan goes, "You've come a long way, baby!" Three stars.

[Marcos Augusto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both novels were written as a reaction against Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740).

In Joseph Andrews, Fielding portrayed the title character as the brother of Pamela Andrews, the heroine of Richardson’s novel. Described on the title page as “Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote,” Joseph Andrews begins as a burlesque of Pamela, but the parodic intention of the novel soon becomes secondary, and it develops into a masterpiece of sustained irony and social criticism. At its centre is Parson Adams, one of the great comic figures of literature. Joseph and the parson have a series of adventures, in all of which they manage to expose the hypocrisy and affectation of others through their own innocence and guilelessness.

In Shamela, published under the pseudonym Conny Keyber in 1741, Fielding transforms Richardson’s virtuous servant girl into a predatory fortune hunter who cold-bloodedly lures her lustful wealthy master into matrimony. It was the first of several books to burlesque the sentimental prudery of the immensely popular Pamela.