The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last / Edition 1

by Sarah Fielding

Overview

The Adventures of David Simple (1744), Sarah Fielding's first and most celebrated novel, went through several editions, the second of which was heavily revised by her brother Henry. This edition includes Henry's "corrections" in an appendix. In recounting the guileless hero's search for a true friend, the novel depicts the derision with which almost everyone treats his sentimental attitudes to human nature. Acclaimed as an accurate portrait of mid-eighteenth-century London, The Adventures of David Simple sets forth some provocative feminist ideas. Also included is Fielding's much darker sequel, Volume the Last (1753).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813109459
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	05/14/1998
Series:	Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	442
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sarah Fielding (1710–1768) was an English author and sister of the novelist Henry Fielding. She wrote The Governess, or Little Female Academy (1749), the first novel in English aimed specifically at children. Earlier she had success with her novel The Adventures of David Simple (1744).

Editorial Reviews

Sabor restores the novel Sarah Fielding really wrote.

East-Central Intelligencer

The revival of interest in Sarah Fielding's writings over the last decade should be quickened by the publication of this important edition.

Letters in Canada

Will undoubtedly spur even more work by scholars and students of the early novel.

Year's Work in English Studies

David Simple is the most-read work of Sarah Fielding, best known as the sister of novelist Henry Fielding. This attractive new edition by Sabor is the fourth in Kentucky's series of 18th-century women's novels.

Choice

This important edition reproduces for the first time since its original publication the first edition of 1744.

Virginia Quarterly Review

A welcome addition to eighteenth-century studies.... Readers of eighteenth-century fiction will be delighted that Sarah Fielding's edition has been restored in a volume that is accessible, responsibly edited, and handsomely produced.

Eighteenth-Century Fiction

" David Simple is the most-read work of Sarah Fielding, best known as the sister of novelist Henry Fielding. This attractive new edition by Sabor is the fourth in Kentucky's series of 18th-century women's novels." — Choice

"Sabor restores the novel Sarah Fielding really wrote." — East-Central Intelligencer

"A welcome addition to eighteenth-century studies.... Readers of eighteenth-century fiction will be delighted that Sarah Fielding's edition has been restored in a volume that is accessible, responsibly edited, and handsomely produced." — Eighteenth-Century Fiction

"The revival of interest in Sarah Fielding's writings over the last decade should be quickened by the publication of this important edition." — Letters in Canada

"Sabor's introduction lays out the family tragedies and financial difficulties that perplexed Fielding's career and provides a detailed revisionist account of her impressive literary accomplishments." — Publishers Weekly

"This important edition reproduces for the first time since its original publication the first edition of 1744." — Virginia Quarterly Review

"Will undoubtedly spur even more work by scholars and students of the early novel." — Year's Work in English Studies

From the Publisher

A bestseller when it first appeared in 1744, The Adventures of David Simple has since suffered at the hands of Sarah's more famous brother, Henry, who edited the novel substantially in all subsequent editions. Now Sabor has done a service to academics and general readers by restoring Sarah Fielding's original text. In the opening chapters of this "Moral Romance," David Simple's brother cheats him out of his inheritance; David's fortune is restored only when a guilt-stricken accomplice reveals the crime. After this betrayal, David makes a quixotic resolution "To travel though the whole World rather than not meet with a real Friend." He finds nothing but deceit until he meets with Cynthia, Valentine and Camilla, genteel but impoverished young people whose relations have unfairly cast them off. The novel concludes with a double marriage; the couples will live together in a utopian establishment funded by David's inheritance. Fielding's 1753 sequel, Volume the Last, is considerably darker. David endures a Job-like series of afflictions as, plagued by lawsuits, false friends and illness, he loses his fortune, his house, his children and his beloved wife. On his deathbed, David meditates on "the Horrors of Friendship": attachment to loved ones leads only to pain in a world where "solid and lasting Happiness is not to be attained." Sabor's introduction lays out the family tragedies and financial difficulties that perplexed Fielding's career and provides a detailed revisionist account of her impressive literary accomplishments. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly