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Book 1, Chapter 16
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Joseph Andrews, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Hypocrisy
Lust vs. Chastity
Social Class
Religion and Charity
Summary
Analysis
Mr. Barnabas calls Abraham Adams to speak with him. He introduces Adams to a bookseller, who is interested in Adams’s books of sermons. Adams is excited, but the bookseller warns him that he’s really only interested in sermons by big-name preachers and is simply agreeing to see Adams’s work as a favor to Barnabas.
Adams’s eagerness to sell books of his sermons shows how much he values his own thoughts and words—perhaps more than the rest of the world does. Nevertheless, the bookseller offers a cynical commentary that sermons are just like any other good: the version that sells best is the version that people recognize.
Themes
The bookseller and Abraham Adams debate the value of printed sermons, with the bookseller contending that quality of a sermon can be determined by how well it sells. Adams contends that he’s better than one of the bestselling preachers because his sermons are more orthodox. Their conversation is interrupted by Mrs. Tow-wouse cursing at Betty.
The bookseller believes that the markets are a meritocracy, where what sells the best is of the highest quality. Adams challenges this idea, but humorously, he does so by suggesting not that he is doing something innovative in his sermons but actually that he is doing something less innovative (and that this is a positive quality for sermons). Basically, Adams thinks that good sermons should be boring.
Themes
Literary Devices
