This is a long, 18th century novel which is all about hypocrisy. The story concerns a young man (who is all virtue - despite a few personal faults) who is rejected by his adoptive father and framed by a jealous relation. He goes on the road, has a few adventures on the way, while all the while trying to marry the object of his affections. Fielding uses characterisation very well, and like Dickens, his bad characters have all the good lines and are fun to follow. More importantly, Fielding discourses on topics that were important at the time. The nature of love, ethics, soldiering, forced marriage, charity, guilt, courtship, gypsies and the nature of law and morality are just a few topics that impact on the hero and allow the author to show how progressive was his thinking of the time. The story itself is actually very straight forward and the topics are introduced to allow the hero to surmount the challenges and obstacles he faces. It does drag a bit in the middle where he is on the road pursuing his beloved and the ending is a sea of sentimental predictable happy endings all round. That said, the language is beautiful and the story does flow by introducing new topics for the hero to overcome. I enjoyed this look into the 18th century enlightened mind and literature style and can highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys literature from this period.