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FIELDING, Henry.

The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, And of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams.

Written in Imitation of The Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote.

First edition. Joseph Andrews is the first comic novel in English – a new species of writing that Fielding in his Preface called “a comic Epic-Poem in Prose” – featuring the Quixotic exploits of his most memorable character, Parson Adams. Fielding had already burlesqued the epistolary form and naïve moralism of Richardson's Pamela in An Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews (1741), but he quickly realised that he had the foundation of a much more ambitious work, embodying an alternative conception of the art of fiction and effectively a new genre in English.

2 volumes, duodecimo (155 × 94 mm). Contemporary sheep stained in imitation of tree calf, neatly rebacked retaining original red and black labels. With 2 leaves publisher’s ads at end of vol. I and 1 (of 2) at end of vol. II. Ownership inscription dated 1951 on front free endpapers. Tips just worn, a very good copy of Fielding’s first and scarcest novel.