JOSEPH ANDREWS

This satirical Austen novel points to the hypocrisy of a country that calls itself free--England--yet denies women full moral stature. Fanny Price, unlike any of Austen's other heroines, is from a poor family--though she was raised by her rich uncle and aunt in the grand country house of the title, where only her cousin Edmund (with whom she falls in love) helps her with the difficulties she suffers from the rest of the family, caused partly by her own fearfulness and timidity. When the sophisticated Crawfords (Henry and Mary), visit the Mansfield neighborhood, the moral sense of each ...