Description
An accurate text of Shamela (Fielding's satire of Samuel Richardson'sPamela, the most popular epistolary novel of the eighteenth century) aswell as An Essay on the Knowledge of the Characters of Men, selectionsfrom The Champion, and the Preface to The Adventures of David Simpleare also included. All of the texts are fully annotated.
"Backgrounds" contains generous extracts from works that Fieldingsatirized-Pamela and Conyer Middleton's Dedication to the Life ofCicero-and emulated-Gil Blas and selections from Don Quixote, the RomanComique, and Le Paysan Parvenu. The section concludes with a generalexplanation of the political and religious contexts in which JosephAndrews 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 commentaryfrom The Student, or Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany, byWilliam Hazlitt, James Beattie, and Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier.
Modern assessments are by Mark Spilka, Dick Taylor, Jr., MartinBattestin, Sheldon Sacks, Morris Golden, Brian McCrea, and HomerGoldberg.
A Selected Bibliography is also included.
"Backgrounds" contains generous extracts from works that Fieldingsatirized-Pamela and Conyer Middleton's Dedication to the Life ofCicero-and emulated-Gil Blas and selections from Don Quixote, the RomanComique, and Le Paysan Parvenu. The section concludes with a generalexplanation of the political and religious contexts in which JosephAndrews 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 commentaryfrom The Student, or Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany, byWilliam Hazlitt, James Beattie, and Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier.
Modern assessments are by Mark Spilka, Dick Taylor, Jr., MartinBattestin, Sheldon Sacks, Morris Golden, Brian McCrea, and HomerGoldberg.
A Selected Bibliography is also included.
