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British writer, playwright and journalist, founder of the English
Realistic School in literature with Samuel Richardson. Fielding's
career as a dramatist has been eclipsed by his career as a novelist.
"When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough;
I've done my duty, and I've done no more."
(from Tom Thumb the Great, 1730)
 Fielding
was born at Sharpham Park, Somerset. He was by birth a gentleman,
close allied to the aristocracy. His father was a nephew of the
3rd Earl of Denbigha, and mother was from a prominent family of
lawyers. Fielding grew up on his parent's farm at East Stour, Dotset.
His mother died when Fielding was eleven, and when his father remarried,
Henry was sent to Eton. He studied at Eton College (1719-1724),
where he learned to love ancient Greek and Roman literature.
Encouraged by his cousin, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Fielding started
his career as a writer in London. In 1728 he wrote two plays, of
which LOVE IN SEVERAL MASQUES was successfully performed at Drury
Lane. In the same year he went to the University of Leiden in the
Netherlands, enlarging his knowledge of classical literature. After
returning to England, he devoted himself to writing for the stage.
Fielding also became a manager of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket.
In 1730 he had four plays produced, among them TOM THUMB, which
is his most famous and popular drama. In 1736 Fielding took over
the management of the New Theatre, writing for it among others the
satirical comedy PASQUIN. For several years Fielding's life was
happy and prosperous.
However, Fielding's sharp burlesques satirizing the government
gained the attention of the Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole and
the Theatrical Licensing Act ended Fielding's career in theatre.
In search for an alternative career he became editor of the magazine
Champion, an opposition journal. After studies of law Fielding
was called in 1740 to the bar. Because of increasing illness - he
suffered from grout and asthma - Fielding was unable to pursue his
legal career with any consistency.
Between the years 1729 and 1737 Fielding wrote 25 plays but he
acclaimed critical notice with his novels. The best known are THE
HISTORY OF TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING (1749), in which the tangled comedies
of coincidence are offset by the neat, architectonic structure of
the story, and THE HISTORY OF THE ADVENTURES OF JOSEPH ANDREWS (1742),
a parody of Richardson's Pamela (1740). In 1734 Fielding married
Charlotte Cradock, who became his model for Sophia in Tom Jones
and for the heroine Of AMELIA. With Charlotte he enjoyed ten years
of happiness until her death in 1744. Fielding's improvidence led
to long periods of considerable poverty, but he was greatly assisted
at various periods of his life by his friend R. Allen, who was the
model for Allworthy in Tom Jones.
In 1747 Fielding caused some scandal by marrying his wife's maid
and friend Mary Daniel. After Walpole had been replaced by another
Prime Minister, Fielding came to the defence of the Establishment.
As a reward for his governmental journalism he was made justice
of the peace for the City of Westminster in 1748 and for the county
of Middlesex in 1749. Together with his half brother Sir John Fielding,
he established a new tradition of justice and suppression of crime
in London. Fielding's writings became more socially orientated -
he opposed among others public hangings. From the court in Bow Street
he continued his struggle against corruption and saw successfully
implemented a plan for breaking up the criminal gangs who were then
flourishing in London.
When the author's health was failing and he was forced to use crutches,
he went with his wife and one of his daughters to Portugal to recuperate.
Fielding died on October 8, 1754 in Lisbon. His travel book, THE
JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO LISBON, appeared posthumously in 1755.
 The
History of Tom Jones, A Foundling was enthusiastically received
by the general public, if not by Richardson, Dr. Johnson and other
literary figures. Much of the action unfolds against the backdrop
of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. The introductory chapters that
preface each of the novel's 18 books cultivate the reader in a
way that was then unprecedented in English fiction. The kindly,
prosperous Mr Allworthy finds a baby boy on his bed. He adopts
the child, naming it Tom Jones. Allworthy suspects that Jenny
Jones, a maidservant to the wife of the schoolmaster Partridge,
is the mother. Jenny leaves with Partridge the neighbourhood.
Allworthy's sister Bridget marries Captain Blifil, they have a
son. Tom and the young and mean-spirited Blifil are raised together.
Years later a rivalry over the attention of Sophia Western arises
between them. Because of an affair with the gamekeeper's daughter
Molly Seagrim, and because of Blifil's treachery, Tom is expelled
from the house. He experiences adventures in the picaresque section
of the novel, drifts into an affair with Lady Ballaston, nearly
kills his opponent in a duel, and is imprisoned. Meanwhile Sophia
flees to London to escape the marriage with Blifil. Jenny Jones
turns up to reveal that Bridget is the mother of Tom, and Blifil's
cruelties to Tom over the years are exposed - Blifil knew the
truth of Tom's birth. Tom marries Sophia, who forgives him for
his infidelities, and Tom becomes the heir of Allworthy.
Note: After novel established itself as a certain literary
form in Britain, were novels often described as The Adventures
of... Examples: The Life and Adventures of Mr Duncan Campbell
by Daniel Defoe (1720); The Adventures of Joseph Andrews by Henry
Fielding (1742); The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit
(1843-44) by Charles Dickens, The Adventures of Philip by W.M.
Thackeray (1861-62), The Adventures of Harry Richmond (1871) by
George Meredith
For further reading: biographies by W.L. Cross (3 vols,
1918) and F.H. Duddon (2 vols, 1952. - Fielding and the Nature
of the Novel by Robert Alter (1968); Henry Fielding: The Critical
Heritage, ed. by R. Paulson and T. Lockwood (1969); Henry Fielding:
Justice Observed, ed. by K.G. Simpson (1986); Imagining the Penitentiary
by John Bender (1987); Henry Fielding: A Life by Martin C. Battestin
and Ruthe R. Battestin (1989); Natural Masques: Gender and Identity
in Fielding's Plays and Novels by Jill Campbell (1995); Critical
Essays on Henry Fielding, ed. by Albert J. Rivero (1998); Henry
Fielding: A Literary Life by Harold E. Pagliaro (1998); The Author's
Inheritance: Henry Fielding, Jane Austen and the Establishment
of the Novel by Joy Alyson Parker (1998)
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