Joseph Andrews

'Kissing, Joseph, is but a prologue to a Play. Can I believe a young fellow of your Age and Complexion will be content with Kissing?' Henry Fielding's first full-length novel, Joseph Andrews depicts the many colourful and often hilarious adventures of a comically chaste servant. After being sacked for spurning the lascivious Lady Booby, Joseph takes to the road, accompanied by his beloved Fanny Goodwill, a much-put-upon foundling girl, and Parson Adams, a man often duped and humiliated but still a model of Christian charity. The novel anticipates Fielding's great comic epic Tom Jones, with its amiable good humour and pointed social satire.