Who was Henry Fielding?

Henry Fielding was an 18th century English writer best known as the author of the novel ‘Tom
Jones.’ Well known for his earthy and satirical sense of humor, he penned several parodies
beginning with the publication of ‘An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews’. Even
though this work was published anonymously, it is generally accepted that he was the author. He
developed an interest in literature as a young man and went to Eton College where he studied
classical authors. He aspired to be a playwright and finished his first play in 1728. He then
moved to the University of Leiden in Holland to study law and classics but was not able to
complete his studies because of financial constraints. Forced to abort his studies and return
home, he began writing for the theater to earn his living. An independent minded outspoken
young man, he wrote plays that were openly critical of the government of Prime Minister Sir
Robert Walpole. However, the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737 stifled the creative freedom of
playwrights, forcing him to abandon his theatrical career. He embarked into a career in law and
became a barrister. He continued to write and produced satirical works like ‘Tom Jones’ and
‘Joseph Andrews’ which made him quite popular.

Childhood & Early Life

Henry Fielding was born on 22 April 1707, in Sharpham, Somerset, England, to Edmund
Fielding and his wife. His father had served under John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, an early
18th-century general, while his mother was the daughter of a judge of the Queen’s Bench. His
mother died when Henry was around 11 and his father soon remarried.
Henry went to Eton College to study classics. There that he met George Lyttelton, who was later
to be a statesman. During this time, he began writing plays.
In 1728, he moved to the University of Leiden in Holland to study classics and law. However,
financial problems forced him to abandon his studies and return home after a few months.

Personal Life & Legacy

Henry Fielding married his first wife, Charlotte Craddock, in 1734. He loved her deeply and
modeled the heroines of two of his novels on her. The marriage produced five children, of whom
only one survived to adulthood. His wife died in 1744, plunging him into grief. Tragically, his
lone surviving daughter by Charlotte too died after some years at the age of 23.
He became romantically involved with his wife’s maid Mary Daniel who became pregnant with
his child. Their relationship culminated in marriage which produced five children. Unfortunately,
three of the children died young.
Fielding also supported the literary ambitions of his younger sister, Sarah Fielding. She
published a novel in 1744 called The Adventures of David Simple, and followed with an
additional text in 1747, Familiar Letters Between The Principal Characters in David Simple.
Sarah later wrote a sequel to David Simple in 1753. Henry Fielding wrote the prefaces to these
texts.
Fielding's health was not good; he was terribly overworked Asthma, dropsy, and severe gout
compelled Fielding to retire in 1754, and he went abroad to Portugal to convalesce. His Journal
of a Voyage to Lisbon, published posthumously in 1755, chronicles the slowness of travel, the
incompetence of doctors, the abuse of power, and Fielding’s own courage and cheerfulness in
encountering these evils. He died in Lisbon in October of 1754.
Sir Walter Scott called Henry Fielding the “father of the English novel,” Though
not actually the first English novelist, he was the first to approach the genre with a
fully worked-out theory of the novel; and in Joseph Andrews, Tom
Jones, and Amelia, which a modern critic has called comic epic, epic comedy, and
domestic epic, respectively, he had established the tradition of a realism presented
in panoramic surveys of contemporary society that dominated English fiction until
the end of the 19th century.

Career
On returning home in 1728, he began writing for the theater, penning several plays during the
1730s. A young man, he bitterly criticized the government of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole
in his plays. It is believed that the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737 was passed in response to his
activities.
The passage of the Act greatly restrained his creative freedom and he was no longer able to
satirize political figures in his plays. Thus he left the theater and ventured into a career in law by
becoming a barrister.
He never stopped writing though. He continued writing satires and also edited a thrice-weekly
newspaper, the ‘Champion; or, British Mercury’. He became a novelist entirely by chance.
In 1740 Samuel Richardson published his story ‘Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded’, a story of a
servant girl who resists her master’s efforts to seduce her and ultimately wins his heart by virtue
of her morality. The book became a resounding success. Fielding, however, found the story
offensive and proceeded to parody it by writing ‘An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela
Andrews’, satirizing Richardson’s prudish morality.
The work was published anonymously and Fielding never claimed credit for it. But it is
generally accepted that he was the author based on the writing style. He wrote another novel,
‘Joseph Andrews’ in 1742, which is counted among the first true novels in the English language.
The publication of this book marked Fielding's debut as a serious novelist.
The year 1743 saw the publication of ‘The History of the Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great’.
In this work he drew a parallel between Walpole and Jonathan Wild, the infamous gang leader
and highwayman, comparing the Whig party in Parliament with a gang of thieves being run by
Walpole.
By the mid-1740s he had gained much fame as a satirist, and he published ‘Tom Jones’ in 1749.
A picaresque novel, it depicts the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives in a
corrupt society. The lengthy novel of 346,747 words was received with enthusiasm by the
general public of the time, and is considered Fielding's greatest book.
During the 1740s, he was appointed justice of the peace for Westminster and then magistrate of
Middlesex. Deeply committed to fighting crime, he collaborated with his younger half-brother
John and helped to form the Bow Street Runners in 1749. The Bow Street Runners have been
called London's first professional police force, and Fielding and John are credited to be two of
the best magistrates in 18th-century London.
In January 1752, Fielding started a fortnightly periodical titled ‘The Covent-Garden Journal’,
under the pseudonym of "Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain”. The same
year he published a treatise ‘Examples of the interposition of Providence in the Detection and
Punishment of Murder’.

Major Works
N: Henry Fielding’s best known work is ‘Tom Jones, a comic novel counted among the earliest
English prose works describable as a novel. Divided into 18 smaller books, the novel though
lengthy is highly organized. Fielding began writing Tom Jones in 1746. It was a wildly
ambitious book which, in attempting to portray the nuances of real life, angered many but
ultimately delighted generations of readers through both its influence and sprawling narrative.

A: Amelia
Essentially a sentimental novel written by Henry Fielding, Amelia (1751) was the last and
perhaps the most intense of his works. Amelia chronicles the life of the eponymous heroine and
Captain William Booth post their wedlock.
N: Joseph Andrews
Henry Fielding published his first full novel in 1742, at a time when he was nearly penniless and
expecting the deaths of his young daughter and beloved wife. Joseph Andrews was, then, a
response to personal and financial exigencies, but it was...

A: Shamela
An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamel Andrews, or better known simply as Shamela, is a
satirical novel published in 1741. Published by Conny Keyber, it is believed that the writer is
Henry Fielding and that he published the novel under a pen...