TOM JONES (THE BESTSELLING LITERARY CLASSICS CRITICAL EDITION) by Henry Fielding (Special Nook Color Illustrated Version) THE BESTSELLING CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED NOVEL The Masterpiece of English Literature by Henry Fielding (Illustrated NOOKbook)

by Henry Fielding, Literary Classics Press (Editor), Tom Jones Nook, NOOKbook Tom Jones, Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (Compiler)

Overview

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. First published on 28 February 1749, Tom Jones is among the earliest English prose works describable as a novel. The novel is divided into 18 smaller books.

Tom Jones is a foundling discovered on the property of a very kind, wealthy landowner, Squire Allworthy, in Somerset in England's West Country. Tom grows into a vigorous and lusty, yet honest and kind-hearted, youth. He develops affection for his neighbour's daughter, Sophia Western. On one hand, their love reflects the romantic comedy genre that was popular in 18th-century Britain. However, Tom's status as a bastard causes Sophia's father and Allworthy to oppose their love; this criticism of class friction in society acted as a biting social commentary. The inclusion of prostitution and sexual promiscuity in the plot was also original for its time.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012448095
Publisher:	Literary Classics Press
Publication date:	05/21/2011
Series:	Great English Novels and Novelists - Austen Dickens Fielding Eliot Thackeray Richardson Radcliffe Sterne Bronte Hardy , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Henry Fielding (Sharpham, 22 April 1707 – near Lisbon, 8 October 1754) was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones.

His father was General Edmund Fielding, descended from the Earls of Denbigh and Desmond, and his mother was the daughter of Sir Henry Gould of Sharpham Park. His childhood was spent at East Stour, Dorset, and his education was received at first from a tutor, after which he was sent to Eton. Following a love affair with a young heiress at Lyme Regis he was sent to Leyden to study law, where he remained until his father, who had entered into a second marriage, and who was an extravagant man, ceased to send his allowance. Thrown upon his own resources, he came to London and began to write light comedies and farces, of which during the next few years he threw off nearly a score. The drama, however, was not his true vein, and none of his pieces in this kind have survived, unless Tom Thumb, a burlesque upon his contemporary playwrights, be excepted.

About 1735 he married Miss Charlotte Cradock, a beautiful and amiable girl to whom, though he gave her sufficient cause for forbearance, he was devotedly attached. She is the prototype of his “Amelia” and “Sophia.” She brought him £1500, and the young couple retired to East Stour, where he had a small house inherited from his mother. The little fortune was, however, soon dissipated; and in a year he was back in London, where he formed a company of comedians, and managed a small theatre in the Haymarket. Here he produced successfully Pasquin, a Dramatic Satire on the Times, and The Historical Register for 1736, in which Walpole was satirised. This enterprise was brought to an end by the passing of the Licensing Act, 1737, making the imprimatur of the Lord Chamberlain necessary to the production of any play. Fielding thereupon read law at the Middle Temple, was called to the Bar in 1740, and went the Western Circuit.

The same year saw the publication of Richardson’s Pamela, which inspired Fielding with the idea of a parody, thus giving rise to his first novel, Joseph Andrews. As, however, the characters, especially Parson Adams, developed in his hands, the original idea was laid aside, and the work assumed the form of a regular novel. It was published in 1742, and though sharing largely in the same qualities as its great successor, Tom Jones