Summary Of Joseph Andrews (Novel) By Henry Fielding

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Summary Of Joseph Andrews (Novel) By Henry Fielding
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Joseph Andrews, a handsome young
footman in the household of Sir Thomas
Booby, has attracted the erotic interest of
his master’s wife, Lady Booby. He has
also been noticed by the parson of the
parish, Mr. Abraham Adams, who wishes
to cultivate Joseph’s moral and
intellectual potential. Before he can start
Joseph on a course of Latin instruction,
however, the Boobys depart the country
for London, taking Joseph with them.
In London, Joseph falls in with a fast
crowd of urban footmen, but despite his
rakish peers and the insinuations of the
libidinous Lady Booby he remains
uncorrupted. After a year or so Sir
Thomas dies, leaving his widow free to
make attempts on the footman’s virtue.
Joseph fails to respond to her amorous
hints, however, because he is too naïve to
understand them; in a letter to his sister
Pamela, he indicates his belief that no
woman of Lady Booby’s social stature
could possibly be attracted to a mere
servant. Soon Joseph endures and rebuffs
another, less subtle attempt at seduction
by Lady Booby’s waiting-gentlewoman, the
middle-aged and hideous Mrs. Slipslop.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Lady Booby sends for Joseph and tries
again to beguile him, to no avail. His
virtue infuriates her, so she sends him
away again, resolved to terminate his
employment. She then suffers agonies of
indecision over whether to retain Joseph
or not, but eventually Joseph receives his
wages and his walking papers from the
miserly steward, Peter Pounce . The
former footman is actually relieved to
have been dismissed, because he now
believes his mistress to be both lascivious
and psychologically unhinged.
Joseph sets out for the Boobys’ country
parish, where he will reunite with his
childhood sweetheart and now fiancée,
the illiterate milkmaid Fanny Goodwill. On
his first night out, he runs into Two
Ruffians who beat, strip, and rob him and
leave him in a ditch to die. Soon a stage-
coach approaches, full of hypocritical and
self-interested passengers who only admit
Joseph into the coach when a lawyer
among them argues that they may be
liable for Joseph’s death if they make no
effort to help him and he dies. The coach
takes Joseph and the other passengers to
an inn, where the chamber-maid, Betty,
cares for him and a Surgeon pronounces
his injuries likely mortal.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Joseph defies the Surgeon’s prognosis the
next day, receiving a visit from Mr.
Barnabas the clergyman and some
wretched hospitality from Mrs. Tow-
wouse , the wife of the innkeeper. Soon
another clergyman arrives at the inn and
turns out to be Mr. Adams, who is on his
way to London to attempt to publish
several volumes of his sermons. Joseph is
thrilled to see him, and Adams treats his
penniless protégé to several meals.
Adams is not flush with cash himself,
however, and he soon finds himself trying
unsuccessfully to get a loan from Mr.
Tow-wouse with a volume of his sermons
as security. Soon Mr. Barnabas, hearing
that Adams is a clergyman, introduces
him to a Bookseller who might agree to
represent him in the London publishing
trade. The Bookseller is not interested in
marketing sermons, however, and soon the
fruitless discussion is interrupted by an
uproar elsewhere in the inn, as Betty the
chambermaid, having been rejected by
Joseph, has just been discovered in bed
with Mr. Tow-wouse
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mr. Adams ends up getting a loan from a
servant from a passing coach, and he and
Joseph are about to part ways when he
discovers that he has left his sermons at
home and thus has no reason to go to
London. Adams and Joseph decide to take
turns riding Adams’s horse on their
journey home, and after a rocky start they
are well on their way, with Adams riding in
a stage-coach and Joseph riding the
horse. In the coach Mr. Adams listens
avidly to a gossipy tale about a jilted
woman named Leonora ; at the next inn he
and Joseph get into a brawl with an
insulting innkeeper and his wife. When
they depart the inn, with Joseph in the
coach and Adams theoretically on
horseback, the absent-minded Adams
unfortunately forgets about the horse and
ends up going on foot.
On his solitary walk, Adams encounters a
Sportsman who is out shooting partridge
and who boasts of the great value he
places on bravery. When the sound of a
woman’s cries reaches them, however, the
Sportsman flees with his gun, leaving
Adams to rescue the woman from her
assailant. The athletic Adams administers
a drubbing so thorough that he fears he
has killed the attacker. When a group of
young men comes by, however, the
assailant suddenly recovers and accuses
Adams and the woman of robbing and
beating him. The young men lay hold of
Adams and the woman and drag them to
the Justice of the Peace, hoping to get a
reward for turning them in. On the way Mr.
Adams and the woman discover that they
know each other: she is Joseph’s beloved,
Fanny Goodwill, who set out to find
Joseph when she heard of his unfortunate
encounter with the Ruffians.
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The Justice of the Peace is negligent and
is about to commit Adams and Fanny to
prison without giving their case much
thought when suddenly a bystander
recognizes Adams and vouches for him as
a clergyman and a gentleman. The
Justice readily reverses himself and
dismisses the charges against Adams and
Fanny, though the assailant has already
slipped away and will not be held
accountable. Soon Adams and Fanny
depart for the next inn, where they expect
to meet Joseph.
Joseph and Fanny have a joyous reunion
at the inn, and Joseph wishes to get
married then and there; both Mr. Adams
and Fanny, however, prefer a more patient
approach. In the morning the companions
discover that they have another inn bill
that they cannot pay, so Adams goes off
in search of the wealthy parson of the
parish. Parson Trulliber , who spends most
of his time tending his hogs rather than
tending souls, reacts badly to Adams’s
request for charity. Adams returns to the
inn with nothing to show for his efforts,
but fortunately a generous Pedlar hears of
the travelers’ predicament and loans
Adams the money he needs
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After a couple more miles on the road, the
travelers encounter a gregarious Squire
who offers them generous hospitality and
the use of his coach but then retracts
these offers at the last minute. Adams
discusses this strange behavior with the
innkeeper, who tells him about the
Squire’s long history of making false
promises.
Walking on after nightfall, the companions
encounter a group of spectral lights that
Mr. Adams takes to be ghosts but that
turn out later to be the lanterns of sheep-
stealers. The companions flee the scene
and find accommodations at the home of
a family named Wilson. After the women
have retired for the evening, Mr. Adams
and Joseph sit up to hear Mr. Wilson tell
his life story, which is approximately the
story of a “rake’s progress” redeemed by
the love of a good woman. Wilson also
mentions that since moving from London
to the country, he and his wife have lost
their eldest son to a gypsy abduction.
The travelers, who are quite won over by
the Wilson family and their simple country
life, depart in the morning. As they walk
along, Mr. Adams and Joseph discuss
Wilson’s biography and debate the origins
of human virtue and vice. Eventually they
stop to take a meal, and while they are
resting, a pack of hunting dogs comes
upon them, annihilates a defenseless hare,
and then attacks the sleeping Mr. Adams.
Joseph and his cudgel come to the
parson’s defense, laying waste to the pack
of hounds. The owner of the hounds, a
sadistic Squire whom Fielding labels a
“ Hunter of Men ,” is at first inclined to be
angry about the damage to his dogs, but
as soon as he sees the lovely Fanny he
changes his plans and invites the
companions to his house for dinner.
The Hunter of Men and his retinue of
grotesques taunt Mr. Adams throughout
dinner, prompting the parson to fetch
Joseph and Fanny from the kitchen and
leave the house. The Hunter sends his
servants after them with orders to abduct
Fanny, whom he has been planning all
along to debauch. The servants find the
companions at an inn the next morning,
and after another epic battle they succeed
in tying Adams and Joseph to a bedpost
and making off with Fanny. Luckily for
Fanny, however, a group of Lady Booby’s
servants come along, recognize the
milkmaid, and rescue her from her
captors. They then proceed to the inn
where Adams and Joseph are tied up, and
Joseph gets to take out his frustrations on
Fanny’s primary captor before they all set
off again. Mr. Adams rides in a coach
with the obnoxious Peter Pounce, who so
insults the parson that he eventually gets
out of the coach and walks beside Joseph
and Fanny’s horse for the last mile of the
journey.
The companions finally arrive home in
Lady Booby’s parish, and Lady Booby
herself arrives shortly thereafter. At
church on Sunday she hears Mr. Adams
announce the wedding banns of Joseph
and Fanny, and later in the day she
summons the parson for a browbeating.
She claims to oppose the marriage of the
young lovers on the grounds that they will
raise a family of beggars in the parish.
When Adams refuses to cooperate with
Lady Booby’s efforts to keep the lovers
apart, Lady Booby summons a lawyer
named Scout, who trumps up a legal
pretext for preventing the marriage. Two
days later Joseph and Fanny are brought
before the Justice of the Peace, who is
perfectly willing to acquiesce in Lady
Booby’s plans.
The arrival of Lady Booby’s nephew, Mr.
Booby, and his new wife, who happens to
be Joseph’s sister Pamela, thwarts the
legal proceedings.
Mr. Booby, not wanting
anything to upset his young wife,
intervenes in the case and springs her
brother and Fanny. He then takes Joseph
back to Booby Hall, while Fanny proceeds
to the Adams home. The next day Lady
Booby convinces Mr. Booby to join in her
effort to dissuade Joseph from marrying
Fanny. Meanwhile, Fanny takes a walk
near Booby Hall and endures an assault by
a diminutive gentleman named Beau
Didapper ; when the Beau fails to have his
way with Fanny, he delegates the office to
a servant and walks off. Fortunately,
Joseph intervenes before the servant can
get very far.
Joseph and Fanny arrive at the Adams
home, where Mr. Adams counsels Joseph
to be moderate and rational in his
attachment to his future wife. Just as
Adams finishes his recommendation of
stoical detachment, someone arrives to
tell him that his youngest son, Dick, has
just drowned in the river. Mr. Adams, not
so detached, weeps copiously for his son,
who fortunately comes running up to the
house before long, having been rescued
from the river by the same Pedlar who
earlier redeemed the travelers from one
of their inns. Adams rejoices and once
again thanks the Pedlar, then resumes
counseling Joseph to avoid passionate
attachments. Joseph attempts to point out
to Adams his own inconsistency, but to no
avail.
Meanwhile, Lady Booby is plotting to use
Beau Didapper to come between Joseph
and Fanny. She takes him, along with Mr.
Booby and Pamela, to the Adams
household, where the Beau attempts to
fondle Fanny and incurs the wrath of
Joseph. When the assembled Boobys
suggest to Joseph that he is wasting his
time on the milkmaid, Joseph departs with
his betrothed, vowing to have nothing
more to do with any relations who will not
accept Fanny.
Joseph, Fanny, the Pedlar, and the
Adamses all dine together at an alehouse
that night. There, the Pedlar reveals that
he has discovered that Fanny is in fact
the long-lost daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Andrews, which would make her the sister
of Joseph and thereby not eligible to be
his wife. Back at Booby Hall, Lady Booby
rejoices to learn that Joseph and Fanny
have been discovered to be siblings.
Everyone then gathers at the Hall, where
Mr. Booby advises everyone to remain
calm and withhold judgment until the next
day, when Mr. and Mrs. Andrews will
arrive and presumably will clear things up.
Late that night, hi-jinx ensue as Beau
Didapper seeks Fanny’s bed but ends up
in Mrs. Slipslop’s. Slipslop screams for
help, bringing Mr. Adams, who mistakenly
attacks Slipslop while the Beau gets away.
Lady Booby then arrives to find Adams
and Slipslop in bed together, but the
confusion dissipates before long and
Adams makes his way back toward his
room. Unfortunately, a wrong turn brings
him to Fanny’s room, where he sleeps
until morning, when Joseph discovers the
parson and the milkmaid in bed together.
After being briefly angry, Joseph
concludes that Adams simply made a
wrong turn in the night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once Adams has left them alone, the
apparent siblings vow that if they turn out
really to be siblings, they will both remain
perpetually celibate. Later that morning
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews arrive, and soon it
emerges that Fanny is indeed their
daughter, stolen from her cradle; what
also emerges, however, is that Joseph is
not really their son but the changeling
baby they received in place of Fanny. The
Pedlar suddenly thinks of the Wilson
family, who long ago lost a child with a
distinctive birth-mark on his chest, and it
so happens that Joseph bears just such a
distinctive birth-mark. Mr. Wilson himself
is luckily coming through the gate of
Booby Hall at that very moment, so the
reunion between father and son takes
place on the spot.
Everyone except Lady Booby then
proceeds to Mr. Booby’s country estate,
and on the ride over Joseph and Fanny
make their wedding arrangements. After
the wedding, the newlyweds settle near
the Wilsons. Mr. Booby dispenses a small
fortune to Fanny, a valuable clerical living
to Mr. Adams, and a job as excise-man to
the Pedlar. Lady Booby returns to a life of
flirtation in London.