•Why it earns a slot
Joseph Andrews is the founding document of the English comic novel as a distinct form: Fielding's preface defines the genre he is inventing, and the text itself demonstrates for the first time in English prose fiction that every character, from a heroic footman to a hog-blood-drenched parson, can be simultaneously satirical and fully alive.
Joseph Andrews, a virtuous young footman and brother of the famous Pamela, is dismissed by his employer Lady Booby after he resists her sexual advances, and sets out on foot toward home and his beloved Fanny. Along the road he is robbed, beaten, and left for dead, but is rescued and joined by the bumbling, good-hearted Parson Adams, and the two travel together through a series of comic misadventures involving innkeepers, highwaymen, corrupt justices, and hypocritical clergymen. By the end of Volume I, Joseph and Adams have been reunited with Fanny, who had set out to find Joseph after hearing of his misfortune, and the three companions resolve to continue their journey home together.
This distillation is written from the freely available original, which is always the better read when you have the time: gutenberg.org.