Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 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.
Aside from his literary achievements, he has a significant place in the history of law-
enforcement, having founded (with his half-brother John) what some have called
London's first police force, the Bow Street Runners, using his authority as a magistrate.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Biography

• 2 Λιτ ε ρ α ρ ψ στψλ ε

• 3 Ιν ποπ υ λ α ρ
χυλ τ υ ρ ε

• 4 Πα ρ τ ι α λ λισ τ οφ
ωο ρ κ σ

• 5 Ρεφ ε ρ ε ν χ ε σ

• 6 Βιβ λ ι ο γ ρ α π η ψ

• 7 Εξ τ ε ρ ν α λ λινκ σ

[edit] Biography
Fielding was educated at Eton College, where he established a lifelong friendship with
William Pitt the Elder.[1] His younger sister, Sarah, also became a successful writer.[2]
After a romantic episode with a young woman that ended in his getting into trouble with
the law, he went to London where his literary career began. In 1728, he travelled to
Leiden to study classics and law at the University.[1] However, due to lack of money he
was obliged to return to London and he began writing for the theatre, some of his work
being savagely critical of the contemporary government under Sir Robert Walpole.
The Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737 is alleged to be a direct result of his activities.
[1]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-booksandwriters-2"[3] The particular play that triggered
the Licensing Act was The Vision of the Golden Rump, but Fielding's satires had set the
tone. Once the Licensing Act passed, political satire on the stage was virtually
impossible, and playwrights whose works were staged were viewed as suspect. Fielding
therefore retired from the theatre and resumed his career in law and, in order to support
his wife Charlotte Cradock and two children, he became a barrister.[1]HYPERLINK \l
"cite_note-booksandwriters-2"[3]
His lack of money sense meant that he and his family often endured periods of poverty,
but he was also helped by Ralph Allen, a wealthy benefactor who later formed the basis
of Squire Allworthy in Tom Jones. After Fielding's death, Allen provided for the
education and support of his children.
Fielding never stopped writing political satire and satires of current arts and letters. His
Tragedy of Tragedies of Tom Thumb (for which Hogarth designed the frontispiece) was,
for example, quite successful as a printed play. He also contributed a number of works to
journals of the day. He wrote for Tory periodicals, usually under the name of "Captain
Hercules Vinegar". During the late 1730s and early 1740s Fielding continued to air his
liberal and anti-Jacobite views in satirical articles and newspapers. Almost by accident, in
anger at the success of Richardson's Pamela, Fielding took to writing novels in 1741 and
his first major success was Shamela, an anonymous parody of Samuel Richardson's
melodramatic novel. It is a satire that follows the model of the famous Tory satirists of
the previous generation (Jonathan Swift and John Gay, in particular).
He followed this up with Joseph Andrews (1742), an original work supposedly dealing
with Pamela's brother, Joseph.[1] Although also begun as a parody, this work developed
into an accomplished novel in its own right and is considered to mark Fielding's debut as
a serious novelist. In 1743, he published a novel in the Miscellanies volume III (which
was the first volume of the Miscellanies). This was The History of the Life of the Late Mr
Jonathan Wild the Great. This novel is sometimes thought of as his first because he
almost certainly began composing it before he wrote Shamela and Joseph Andrews. It is a
satire of Walpole that draws a parallel between Walpole and Jonathan Wild, the infamous
gang leader and highwayman. He implicitly compares the Whig party in Parliament with
a gang of thieves being run by Walpole, whose constant desire to be a "Great Man" (a
common epithet for Walpole) should culminate only in the antithesis of greatness: being
hanged.
His anonymously-published The Female Husband of 1746 is a fictionalized account of a
notorious case in which a female transvestite was tried for duping another woman into
marriage. Though a minor item in Fielding's total oeuvre, the subject is consistent with
his ongoing preoccupation with fraud, sham, and masks. His greatest work was Tom
Jones (1749), a meticulously constructed picaresque novel telling the convoluted and
hilarious tale of how a foundling came into a fortune. Charlotte, on whom he later
modelled the heroines of both Tom Jones and Amelia, died in 1744. Three years later
Fielding – disregarding public opinion – married Charlotte's former maid, Mary, who was
pregnant.[3]
Despite this, his consistent anti-Jacobitism and support for the Church of England led to
him being rewarded a year later with the position of London's Chief Magistrate, and his
literary career went from strength to strength. Joined by his younger half-brother John, he
helped found what some have called London's first police force, the Bow Street Runners
in 1749.[4] According to the historian G.M. Trevelyan, they were two of the best
magistrates in eighteenth-century London, and did a great deal to enhance the cause of
judicial reform and improve prison conditions. His influential pamphlets and enquiries
included a proposal for the abolition of public hangings. This did not, however, imply
opposition to capital punishment as such—as evident, for example, in his presiding in
1751 over the trial of the notorious criminal James Field, finding him guilty in a robbery
and sentencing him to hang. Despite being now blind, John Fielding succeeded his older
brother as Chief Magistrate and became known as the 'Blind Beak' of Bow Street for his
ability to recognise criminals by their voice alone.[5] In January 1752, Fielding started a
biweekly periodical titled The Covent-Garden Journal, which he would publish under the
pseudonym of "Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain" until November
of the same year. In this periodical, Fielding directly challenged the "armies of Grub
Street" and the contemporary periodical writers of the day in a conflict that would
eventually become the Paper War of 1752-1753.
Fielding's ardent commitment to the cause of justice as a great humanitarian in the 1750s,
coincided with a rapid deterioration in his health to such an extent that he went abroad to
Portugal in 1754 in search of a cure. Gout, asthma and other afflictions meant that he had
to use crutches. He died in LisbonHYPERLINK \l "cite_note-booksandwriters-2"[3] two
months later and his tomb in the city English Cemetery (a.k.a. "Os Cyprestes") may be
visited, which also has the St. George's Church (Anglican church for Lisbon) inside the
cemetery.

Henry Fielding gravesite Entrance to the Lisbon St George church is

Henry Fielding which contains Anglican English Cemetery where the Anglican church
circa 1743 etching church of St. George Henry Fielding's gavesite for Lisbon. Fielding
from Jonathan nearby in the cemetery. is located. gavesite is about 150
Wild the Great
feet away.

[edit] Literary style

Whereas Defoe and Richardson both attempt to hide the fictional nature of their work
under the guise of 'memoirs' and 'letters' respectively, Henry Fielding adopted a position
which represented a new departure in terms of prose fiction—in no way do his novels
constitute an effort to disguise literary devices. In fact, he was the first major novelist to
openly admit that his prose fiction was pure artifice. Also, in comparison with his arch
rival and contemporary, Richardson, Fielding presents his reader with a much wider
range of characters taken from all social classes.
Fielding's lack of psychological realism (i.e. the feelings and emotions of his characters
are rarely explored in any depth) can perhaps be put down to his overriding concern to
reveal the universal order of things. It can be argued that his novel Tom Jones reflects its
author's essentially neoclassical outlook—character is something the individual is blessed
with at birth, a part of life's natural order or pattern. Characters within Fielding's novels
also correspond largely to types; e.g. Squire Western is a typically boorish and
uncultivated Tory squire, obsessed with fox hunting, drinking and acquiring more
property.
So Fielding's comic epic contains a range of wonderful—but essentially static—
characters whose motives and behaviour are largely predetermined. There is little
emotional depth to his portrayal of them, and the complex realities of interactive human
relationships that are so much a part of the modern novel are of negligible importance to
him. Perhaps the character we come to know best is the figure of the omniscient narrator
himself (i.e. Fielding) whose company some of his readers come to enjoy.[5]

[edit] In popular culture

• Fielding, played by John Sessions, satirically narrates the 1997 television
adaptation of his own work The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. His brother
John Fielding also appears as the magistrate at Jones' trial.

• Fielding is the central character in the 2008 Channel 4 historical drama City of
Vice, an account on the early cases of the Bow Street runners, which used
Fielding's diaries as a source. Fielding was played by character actor Ian
McDiarmid.

• Fielding is portrayed in the 2006 BBC drama by David Warner, Sweeney Todd
starring Ray Winstone as Sweeney Todd and Essie Davis.
In Joe Wright's 2007 film adaptation of "Atonement" (novel by Ian Mcewan), Cecilia
admits to Robbie that she "prefers Fielding anyday; he's much more passionate" as
opposed to the other 18th century Romantic writers."

[edit] Partial list of works

• The Masquerade – a poem (Fielding's first publication)

• Λοϖ ε ιν Σεϖ ε ρ α λ Μ α σ θ υ ε σ – play, 1728

• Ρ α π ε υ π ο ν Ρ α π ε – play, 1730. Adapted by Bernard Miles as Lock

Up Your Daughters! in 1959, filmed in 1974

• Τη ε Τεµ π λ ε Βεα υ – play, 1730

• Τη ε Αυ τ η ο ρ ∋ σ Φα ρ χ ε – play, 1730

• Τη ε Τρα γ ε δ ψ οφ Τρα γ ε δ ι ε σ ; ο ρ, Τη ε
Λιφ ε αν δ ∆εα τ η ο φ Τ ο µ Τ η υ µ β – play, 1731

• Γρ υ β− Σ τ ρ ε ε τ Οπ ε ρ α – play, 1731

• Τη ε Μο δ ε ρ ν Ηυ σ β α ν δ – play, 1732

• Τη ε Χοϖ ε ν τ Γαρ δ ε ν Τ ρ α γ ε δ ψ – play, 1732

• Pasquin – play, 1736

• Τη ε Ηι σ τ ο ρ ι χ α λ Ρε γ ι σ τ ε ρ φορ τηε
Ψ ε α ρ 1736 – play, 1737

• Αν Απ ο λ ο γ ψ φορ τη ε Λι φ ε οφ Μρ σ.
Σηα µ ε λ α Α ν δ ρ ε ω σ – novel, 1741

• Τη ε Ηι σ τ ο ρ ψ οφ τη ε Αδϖ ε ν τ υ ρ ε σ οφ
ϑοσ ε π η Αν δ ρ ε ω σ αν δ η ι σ Φρ ι ε ν δ , Μρ.
Α β ρ α η α µ Α β ρ α µ σ – novel, 1742

• Τη ε Λι φ ε αν δ ∆εα τ η οφ ϑο ν α τ η α ν Ωιλ δ,
τ η ε Γ ρ ε α τ – novel, 1743, ironic treatment of Jonathan Wild, the most
notorious underworld figure of the time. Published as Volume 3 of Miscellanies.

• Miscellanies – collection of works, 1743, contained the poem Part of Juvenal's

Sixth Satire, Modernized in Burlesque Verse

• The Female Husband or the Surprising History of Mrs Mary alias Mr George
Hamilton, who was convicted of having married a young woman of Wells and
lived with her as her husband, taken from her own mouth since her confinement –
pamphlet, fictionalized report, 1746

• Τη ε Ηι σ τ ο ρ ψ οφ Το µ ϑον ε σ, α
Φο υ ν δ λ ι ν γ – novel, 1749

• A Journey from this World to the Next – 1749

• Αµ ε λ ι α – novel, 1751

• Τη ε Χοϖ ε ν τ Γαρ δ ε ν ϑου ρ ν α λ – periodical, 1752

• Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon – travel narrative, 1755