Henry Fielding: a Memoir Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary Prints

To a man dying of a complication of disorders the terrible winter of 1753-4 brought added danger; a winter which, says Fielding, "put a lucky end, if they had known their own in...

Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, on the 22nd of April 1707. His birth-room, a room known as the Harlequin Chamber, looked out over the roof of a build...

To have created the English novel were, it might seem, achievement enough to tire for a while the most vigorous of intellects; but to the author of _Tom Jones_ the apathy of rep...

"Whoever attempteth to introduce corruption into any community, doth much the same thing, and ought to be treated in much the same manner with him who poisoneth a fountain." --D...

If the 'sunrise' of Fielding's genius did indeed shine forth on the publication of _Joseph Andrews_, it was a sunrise attended by dark clouds. For, with the appearance of these...

"I could not help reflecting how often the greatest abilities lie wind-bound, as it were, in life; or if they venture out, and attempt to beat the seas, they struggle in vain ag...

"However vain or romantic the Attempt may seem I am sanguine enough to aim at serving the noble Interests of Religion, Virtue, and good Sense, by these my lucubrations." The _Co...

Fielding's active pen seems to have been laid aside for twelve months after the death of his wife; and it is perfectly in accord with all that we know of his passionate devotion...

It is evident that the beginning of the year 1753 found Fielding fully conscious that now he could only anticipate a 'short remainder of life.' But neither that consciousness, n...

There is no record of when or how Fielding disposed of his share in the management of the New Theatre in the Haymarket. But on June 21 1737, Walpole's Bill for regulating the st...

The last retort on Colley Cibber had scarcely been launched from the columns of the _Champion_, when that intrepid 'Censor of Great Britain' and indefatigable law student, _Capt...

On the 2nd of February 1742 Sir Robert Walpole, the 'Colossos' of popular broadsides, under whose feet England had lain for exactly thirty years, received his final defeat; and...

"The Subject, as well as the Child, should be left without excuse before he is punished: for, in that case alone, the Rod becomes the Hand either of the Parent or the Magistrate...

Out of the paint and powder of the green-room, the tobacco clouds of the tavern, the crowded streets where hungry genius went afoot one day, and rode in a coach the next--in a w...

or the poorness of its furniture, cannot have appeared very material. "Come bright Love of Fame," he cries "... fill my ravished Fancy with the Hopes of charming Ages yet to com...

And the puff preliminary of the period may be read in the same columns, declaring that the "earnest Demand of the Publick" had necessitated the use of four printing presses; and...

The Licensing Act of June 1737 thus brought Henry Fielding's career as political dramatist to a hasty conclusion; a conclusion quite unforeseen by the luckless author, as appear...

The two years of Fielding's life preceding his appointment as a Bow Street magistrate (an appointment comparable only to the choice of Robert Burns as an exciseman) were marked,...

Henry Fielding, defending Betty Canning from her accusers, the Lord Mayor, Dr Hill, and the Gipsy _From a contemporary print, now first reproduced, and the only known sketch of...