This Norton Critical Edition reprints the authoritative Wesleyan text of Joseph Andrews, edited by Martin Battestin. An accurate text of Shamela (Fielding’s satire of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, the most popular epistolary novel of the time), An Essay on the Knowledge of the Characters of Men, selections from The Champion, and the Preface to The Adventures of David Simple are also included. All of the texts are fully annotated...

This Norton Critical Edition reprints the authoritative Wesleyan text of Joseph Andrews, edited by Martin Battestin. An accurate text of Shamela (Fielding’s satire of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, the most popular epistolary novel of the time), An Essay on the Knowledge of the Characters of Men, selections from The Champion, and the Preface to The Adventures of David Simple are also included. All of the texts are fully annotated.

The "Backgrounds" section contains generous excerpts from works Fielding had in mind as he wrote Joseph Andrews. Included are texts that Fielding satirized--Pamela and Conyer Middleton’s Dedication to the Life of Cicero--and emulated-- Gil Blas and selections from Don Quixote, the Roman Comique, and Le Paysan Parvenu. The section concludes with a general explanation of the political and religious contexts in which Joseph Andrews was written.

"Criticism" offers a broad range of responses to the novel. Contemporary assessments include selected letters (of Thomas Gray, William Shenstone, Samuel Richardson, and others) as well as commentary from The Student, or Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany, by William Hazlitt, James Beattie, and Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier. Modern assessments are contributed by Mark Spilka, Dick Taylor, Jr., Martin Battestin, Sheldon Sacks, Morris Golden, Brian McCrea, and Homer Goldberg.

Editor’s Preface

The Text of Joseph Andrews

The Text of Shamela

Related Writings

From The Champion

  [Essay on Reputation]

  [Essay on Good Nature]

  [The Apology for the Clergy]

An Essay on the Knowledge of the Characters of Men

 Preface to The Adventures of David Simple

Backgrounds and Sources

 Samuel Richardson · From Pamela, or Virtue

  Rewarded

 Conyers Middleton · From the Dedication to The

  History of the Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero

 Migue] de Cervantes Saavedra · From The Life

  and Atchievements of the Renown’d Don Quixote

 Paul Scarron · From Le Roman comique

 Alain-Ren· Lesage · From Histoire de Gil Blas de

   Santillane

 Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux · From

   Le Paysan parvenu, ou les Memoirs de M * * *

 Political and Religious Background

Criticism

CONTEMPORARY RESPONSES AND EARLY CRITICISM

 Letters

   George Cheyne to Samuel Richardson,

    March 9, 1742

  Thomas Gray to Richard West, April 1742

  William Shcnstone to Richard Graves, 1742

  William Shenstonc to Lady Henrietta Luxborough,

    March 22, 1749

  Elizabeth Carter to Catherine Talbot,

    January 1, 1743

  Samucl Richardson to Lady Dorothy Bradshaigh,

    1749

Pierre Franqois Guyot Desfontaines · From

  Observations sur les eerits modernes

From The Student, or, The Oxford and Cambridge

  Monthly Miscellany, January 20, 1750

Sarah Fielding [and Jane Collier?] · [Parson Adams

  Not an Object of Ridicule]

James Beattie · [The New Comic Romance]

William Hazlitt · [A Perfect Piece of Statistics

  in Its Kind]

MODERN CRITICISM

Mark Spilka · Comic Resolution in Fielding’s

  Joseph Andrews

Dick Taylor, Jr. · Joseph as Hero in Joseph Andrews

Martin C. Battestin · [Thematic Meaning and

  Structure]

Sheldon Sacks · [Fielding’s Guidance of the Reader’s

  Attitudes in Book 1, Chapters 1-11]

  [Wilson’s Tale]

Morris Golden · [Fielding’s Psychology and Its

  Relation to Morality]

Homer Goldberg · The Reasoning Behind the Form

  of Joseph Andrews

Brian McCrea · Rewriting Pamela: Social Change and

  Rcligious Faith in Joseph Andrews

Selected Bibliography