The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews

Joseph Andrews begins as a playful answer to Samuel Richardson's Pamela. Joseph, a young footman, is the virtuous brother of Pamela, and he must resist the advances of his employer's widow. Dismissed from his post, he sets out on the road, joined by the absent-minded and good-hearted clergyman Parson Adams.

Their journey leads through inns, coaches and country houses, where they meet vanity, greed and unexpected kindness. Fielding mixes farce with gentle moral observation and calls the work a comic epic in prose. It is an early and lively example of the English comic novel.