With Joseph setting out from London by moonlight, the narrator introduces the reader to the heroine of the novel, Fanny Goodwill. A poor illiterate girl of 'extraordinary beauty' (I, xi) now living with a farmer close to Lady Booby's parish, she and Joseph had grown ever closer since their childhood, before their local parson and mentor Abraham Adams recommended that they postpone marriage until they have the means to live comfortably.