"Backgrounds" contains generous extracts from works that Fielding satirized--Pamela and Conyer Middleton'sDedication to the Life of Cicero--and emulated--Gil Blas and selections from Don Quixote, the Roman Comique, and Le Paysan Parvenu. The section concludes with a general explanation of the political and religious contexts in which Joseph Andrews 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 commentary...