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Tom Jones isn't a bad guy, but boys just want to have fun. Nearly two and a half centuries after its publication, the adventures of the rambunctious and randy Tom Jones still makes for great reading. I'm not in the habit of using words like bawdy or rollicking, but if you look them up in the dictionary, you should see a picture of this book.Product Description
Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury Tom Jones is widely regarded as one of the first and most influential English novels. It is certainly the funniest.Tom Jones, the hero of the book, is introduced to the reader as the ward of a liberal Somerset squire. Tom is a generous but slightly wild and feckless country boy with a weakness for young women. Misfortune, followed by many spirited adventures as he travels to London to seek his fortune, teach him a sort of wisdom to go with his essential good-heartedness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (37)

Now that's what I call satire...
"Soon after its 1749 publication, Tom Jones was condemned for being "lewd," and even blamed for several earthquakes. But what really riled its critics was its supremely funny satirical attack on eighteenth-century British society and its follies and hypocrisies - which, of course, are very much like our own." From the publisher


A Love Story? Adventure? Sophisticated 18th century humor? A handsome and rambunctious protagonist? I'm In!
This is the lengthy, (maybe a bit too drawn out) history of Fielding's hero, Tom Jones. Found as an infant in the bed of Mr. Allworthy, the wealthy and pious widower who adopts him and raises him as his own.
The enormously Kind Allworthy raises the foundling (orphan) child as his own, much to the chagrin of his super class conscious community, where he is given all the privileges of upper class society (sans the inheritance. In 18th century England, it is illegal for foundlings to be heirs). Fielding's Hero has a heart of gold; he is gallant, chivalrous, with boyish good looks to match-- the only problem is Tom can't seem to keep himself out of trouble. Especially with the ladies. He carries on scandalous affairs--endearingly. He can't seem to control his libido but Fielding never paints his intentions as dishonorable. By no means is he innocent; Jones is just a nice guy who finds himself in hilarious situations with women because he is irresistable...and HORNY.
Through the cunning of Allworthy's nephew Blifil, and his own folly, he gets turned out of doors by Mr. Allworthy, just as his beloved Sophia, (the girl next door) is betrothed to his sneaky cousin.
Sophia runs away to London rather than be forced to marry Blifil, while Tom himself encounters some uproarious adventures in his path to London, where he and Sophia's trails meet and he endeavors to win her back. There in London he even discovers his true parentage, and the evil Blifil gets recognized for the conniving sneak he is.
In the end, all is well. It takes Fielding 1000 pages to do so as he pokes fun at 18th century English morals,introduces us to interesting characters, puts Tom in crazy situations, and explores the true meaning of what it is to be "good."

Mr. Herman Jay, wherever you are, THANK YOU!
Henry Fielding's observations about humans and society hold true: This book is so funny it could have been written yesterday.

Thank goodness my 12th grade English teacher (the aforementioned Mr. Jay) had us read this marvelous book. After devouring Fielding's rambling and intricately plotted story as a teen, I was never again daunted by huge pre-20th Century novels with teeny print. This book opened the door for me to enjoy Austen, Dickens, Trollope, etc.I've reread it recently, cackling at every page, and it has remained my favorite novel.

The story is divided into three parts: the country, the road to London and the city itself.Along the way we meet so many memorable people, each with his/her own little set of intrigues--some of which overlap, of course.It is amazing to me how Fielding managed his characters' comings and goings so as to make it perfectly plausible that no one character has all the pieces of the puzzle of Tom's parentage or of Blifl's treachery.

Henry Fielding is a great `host' and companion.He has a truly hilarious writer's voice, alternating different literary tones to describe characters and events for maximum comic effect. He shamelessly digresses about whatever subject he feels like. (He is considerate enough to put these fabulous musings in well-marked chapters and gives the reader permission to just skip them.My very favorite: the one about extending the metaphor of the cliché `all the world's a stage'.)

Favorite Quote from Tom Jones: "It is as possible for a man to know something without having been at school, as it is to have been at school and to know nothing."

Can I give it SIX stars?

A Foundling's Felicity
This book or novel or whatever you may deem fit to call it has so many points in its favour that it's difficult to know where to begin. I think a rundown of a few of the myriad of characters that delight me personally might do for starters:

Tom Jones - A young fellow with many "imperfections" if so they may be called, but a robust fellow with a "good heart."Prudence and what is commonly called virtue are not his strong suit - But may I remind the reader that virtue comes from the Latin word for "manliness"- Tom is certainly possessed of the word's etymological origins, if not of its modern usage (particularly in amorous matters)--And a good thing too, or we should have no story here to delight us!

Squire Western- Another rambunctious character, who, for me, typifies all that is Eighteenth Century England.Every time he appeared in this book, whether it was to comment on wenching, wine, or riding to hounds a smirk would immediately cross my face followed invariably by chuckling by the end of the chapter.

Henry Fielding - The author plays as much a part of the book as any of the characters with many prologues and prefaces and etc. For these, and for much of the rest of the book, I might add, the reader who has not had four years of Latin inculcated into him at an English boarding school would do well to buy the Oxford edition, which fully explains all the learned quotes - Also, as one who was thus inculcated but is inclined to laziness, the Oxford edition's notes prove extremely helpful also.Fielding also gives us a lively picture of the literary life of his time, which the Oxford footnotes do a deft job of explaining- In short, buy the Oxford edition.

This review can not be comprehensive.There are simply too many characters to even make a go at encompassing them all.I'm merely describing some of the, to me, more delightful ones.

The book as a whole is simply a joy to read, in its comic descriptions of all who will deign to admit that they are human, and of some priggish sorts who will not so deign.I can put it no better than Fielding Himself at the beginning of Book XV:

"There are a set of religious, or rather moral writers, who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world.A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that is not true."

In short, this is a delightful ramble of a book which, while entertaining the reader not too attached to Sunday School, sheds light on how unvirtuous the virtuous can be, and how kind and good-natured the roguish can be as well as giving us as good a history lesson on the state of affairs in Eighteenth century England (with attention given to the Jacobite Rebellion etc.) as many a "proper" history does.

Who, I ask myself, would not delight in this book? ---Well...for the priggish, there's always Jane Austen.

Tom Jones: There Is No Doubt-Society Is Just
When Henry Fielding published TOM JONES in 1749, just one year after Samuel Richardson did with CLARISSA, there was a literary and vituperative collision of the only two writers of English novels. Richardson's heroine lived in an uneasy stasis of romance and tragedy, one in which the attention of the reader was directed to specified personalities, clear if egregious motives, and numbed reactions that were none the less horrifying in their numbness.Richardson, then, placed Clarissa in an unjust world that allowed her to grow in a manner that transcended her endured injustices. The world of Henry Fielding, by contrast, was one of benevolence., one in which evil and foolish characters were allowed to thrive but at no point in TOM JONES was the reader in any doubt that by the end of the hero's epic journey that he would regain a sense of social equilibrium.Fielding, then, placed Tom Jones in a just world that allowed him to wallow in his own sexual excesses but would not permit him to stay there very long.The very qualities that annoyed Richardson so much about Fielding's basically optimistic view of society are the ones that have made certain that both Clarissa and Tom Jones are much read today, even if for quite different reasons.

As many readers have noted the action of TOM JONES is divided into three parts: the first tells of the major characters--the Allworthys, the Westerns, the birth of Tom, and the linked events that caused Sophia to flee from an unwelcome marriage to the scoundrel Blifil. The second tells of the interlocking flights and pursuits among Sophia, Tom, Mrs. Fitzgerald, Mrs. Waters, and Mrs. Honor. The third details the deux ex machina travails in London that clear up all difficulties in a manner that strains credibility.Each of these three encapsulates specific traits that permeate the book.In the first of the three, Fielding uses deliberate misunderstanding between Squire Allworthy and Tom, between Allworthy and Sophia, and between Allworthy and Blifil to create purposeful ignorance that heightens the satire between what one person knows and what the other does not. In the second, Fielding shows that Tom's numerous falls from grace show him to be not much worse than your typical young man who sees no big harm in engaging in illicit encounters with women who are only too glad to have them.Readers might shake their heads at these lapses, but their essential sympathies were not permitted to waver. Fielding further did not allow readers to forget that the focus of the book was not on Tom's dalliances but on his eventual uncovering of his rightful place in society.By the third section, Fielding uses an admittedly too pat a way of ensuring that Tom's noble birth be acknowledged, but despite that Fielding first hints in the first two sections and then finalizes in the third the underlying ideology that English class structure and unity are paramount. When Tom and Sophia are ultimately reunited in marriage, Fielding assures his readers that one need not upset the stratified social order of 18th century England to ensure a fairy tale ending.The fact that readers now respond as well as readers then suggests that Fielding's belief that society needs a stable and long standing cohesive order has not changed much in three hundred years. Samuel Richardson might object, but readers can find a place for their two widely divergent views and enjoy both.

Simply The Best
It's nearly impossible to review a book that is just so incredibly good.The quickest way I can describe it is: This is simply the best novel I have ever read.And that's after four years of being an English major as an undergraduate, plus ten yearsof reading novel after novel after novel after that.

This book is the bridge between early novels like DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe, and what the novel becomes in the hands of Dickens.It also shows flashes of influence from people like Swift and Pope (whom Fielding mimics in a couple of passages).The novel has something for everyone:for example, if you want humor, it's here in spades--in both broad form (the rantings of Squire Western and his sister arguing with each other) and subtle form (chapter headings like "The Reader's Head Brought Into Danger by a Description", or the ironic description of the plain-looking Bridget Allworthy: "she was so far from regretting want of beauty that she never mentioned that perfection, if it can be called one, without contempt."If you want characters that have real imperfections and aren't just good or bad "types", you won't find more interesting ones than here.If you want to see what English novels looked like before the Victorians made them all "moral", you need look no further than this one, which was blamed for causing a series of earthquakes at the time of its publication because of its "lewdness" (not that it's seriously lewd, but it's hard to imagine a Dickens hero who ever believes, with good reason, that he has fathered a child out of wedlock, and who ends up for a while the "kept man" of a "fashionable woman."And if you want to be a writer and not just a reader of novels, Fielding's book contains quite a bit of advice on that, particularly in the introductory chapters of each sub-"book."

I despise Samuel Taylor Coleridge on most occasions, but he was right about one thing:he described Tom Jones as having, along with Oedipus Rex, the most perfectly constructed plot of any book.I couldn't agree more.So knock the dust off this classic and read it.It may be long, but you'll be wishing it were longer once you finish it.

Incidentally, there's one odd feature of the "Everyman" edition of this book.For some reason, it doesn't include headings to each book, describing the time period covered by that part of the novel.I have seen these headings in a number of other editions, so I'm not quite sure what is up with this. ... Read more

Book Description
In Joseph Andrews (1742), Fielding's first novel, footboyJoseph loses his place when he rejects Lady Booby's advances, commencinga comic odyssey of robbery, poverty, and sexual viciousness. Alsoincluded is Shamela (1741), a shorter work, which extends the parody ofSamuel Richardson's immensely successful Pamela (1740) begun in JosephAndrews. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Joseph Andrews is a picaresque/humorous eighteenth century novel which will delight the reader
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) was a man of the world. Though Fielding became a jurist in the last years of his short life he knew the corrupt, sexy and violent England of the reign of George II. In "Joseph Andrews" and his later, longer novel "Tom Jones" we join a hero on a romp through merry olde England!
Joseph Andrews is the reputed brother of Pamela Andrews being employed as a footman in the home of Lady Booby the widow of Sir Booby (the names are hilarious in this novel-for instance there is "Peter Pounce"!)When Lady Booby dismisses him after her failed seduction of the innocent lad he is forced to leave her employ.
Joseph is befriended by the poor curate Abraham Adams who is going to London to sell a book of his sermons. Adams is a Sancho Panza figure who has six children and a wife back at home. He is involved in countless battles, misunderstandings and hilarious situations in inns and before judges! Adams is like an innocent Adam prior to the Fall of Man. He is a good old soul who seeks to help Joseph and the latter's illiterate love
Fanny Goodwill.
All comes out well in the end as Joseph and Fanny are wed and we learn the history of their infancy. We learn many surprises about them which I won't share with anyone who is reading this review prior to perusing the novel for the first time!
Fielding is adept at humor, sexual situations and violent Keystone Kops varieties of mock battles! He was a fan of Cervantes and Andrews resembles an English Don Quioxote. Fielding enjoyed being the omniscent narrator often interjecting his thoughts on everything from marriage, the British social structure, warfare, human nature and the joys of true love.
Fielding's novel is a comment on Samuel Richardson's "Pamela" epistlatory novel of 1740 in which the pious servant Pamela writes home to her parents about her abduction, rape and eventual marriage to a Lord B. Fielding thought the virtuous Pamela to be a bit sickening and so satirized that lady in his "Shamela" and Joseph Andrews.
Joseph is the supposed brother of Pamela who appears in the Fielding novel. What did Richardson think of this "stealing" by Fielding of his famous heroine?
The characters are typecast showing no growth or development as would be the case in later novels. Dickens was greatly influenced by Fielding
whose careful descriptions of characters was a lesson well learned bythe great Victorian writer.
Joseph Andrews will take the reader back to the days of English inns and ale houses, rural roads and great country estates. It says much to our age about human nature which never changes.
Henry Fielding is a great early English novelist and his Joseph Andrews will always remain as a classic of the novelist's difficult art

One of the funniest books I've ever read!
This fast-paced comic novel was written as a parody of another 18th century classic, the immensely popular Pamela. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded,was a best selling novel by Fielding's comtemporary, Samuel Richardson. (Please see my other reviews for more about this). Although the language andsocial customs have changed in the 200 plus years since this book was written, there is enough universality to the comedy that modern readers won't mind missing a few of the jokes.

Although having read Pamela first will help you get some of the inside humor, Joseph Andrews can be read on its own as well. Fielding uses Richardson's more serious morality tale as a jumping-off point for a pretended sequel, in which Pamela has a brother who encounters many of the same situations as his more famous sister. While Pamela was pursued by an amorous and unscrupulous landowner, Joseph is chased by lecherous females who can't believe that he is serious about saving himself for marriage to his childhood sweetheart. The humor comes from the gender reversal, and from Fielding's no-holds-barred spoof of the manners (and lack thereof) of the fashionable upper classes. Joseph is a clear-headed, intelligent young man of the servant class, whose social superiors just can't stop being ridiculous at every opportunity.I won't go into plot details-they are mostly of the standard farce variety anyway. But the scenes and dialog are often so hilarious that it doesn't matter what the pretext is, you just have to suspend all critical judgement and laugh.

P.S. Shamela is included in this edition. It's a shorter spoof of Pamela, written as a bawdy series of letters in which the supposedly chaste and innocent heroine reveals her darker side. Not on a par with Joseph Andrews, but still pretty funny.

Joseph Andrews--Like Kerouac--Goes On The Road
When readers come to JOSEPH ANDREWS--at least outside of a class on the 18th century novel, they usually have heard that this novel by Henry Fielding is funny, sort of an early Keruoac's On The Road. And while it is funny--a closer analogy might be to Hope and Crosby's On the Road films--its less obvious humor lies in its sharp satire, an understanding of which requires a bit of understanding how to place this book in its proper historical and cultural milieu.

To begin with, Fielding wrote JOSEPH ANDREWS when novel writing was still very nearly a brand new genre. The only models he had were from classical antiquity and a few more recent innovators like Swift and Samuel Richardson. Fielding felt that his efforts were so new that he had to justify them, which he did in the often overlooked and unread "Preface" to the book. Reading this preface sheds some much needed light on the genesis of his novel. Fielding notes here that he wrote JOSEPH ANDREWS according to what he saw as the models first used by the classic ancient poetry writers. They wrote mostly poems and epic poems. What Fielding was writing was a genre unknown to them: prose fiction. Fielding thus tries to draw an analogy between what he was writing and what these ancients had written: "Now, a comic romance is a comic epic-poem in prose." Since Fielding clearly saw JOSEPH ANDREWS as a comic romance, it made sense to him that he should follow the strict unities of time and place that the ancients followed in their epic poems. But one often overlooked irony is that this stern self-reminder from his own preface he then abandoned wildly, often, and at the drop of a hat. Thus, for his contemporary audience who had more than a passing acquaintance with classical training, Fielding gets his JOSEPH ANDREWS off with a satirical bang.

The book's plot itself defies explanation. It involves lost heirs, children stolen at birth, secret birthmarks, beatings that somehow leave no bruises: and all these occur fairly early on. The events are so convoluted and over the top that it is difficult to read them or remember them in their listed sequence. Yet, Fielding had good reason to believe that these wildly unbelievable events were precisely what his audiences wanted, since both Swift and Pope were still living and their respective satires much read and appreciated. Fielding chose to write on the book's title page that JOSEPH ANDREWS was "written in imitation of the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote." With that subtle hint, Fielding feels free to allow his hero to go off tilting at every object in his path but windmills. This tilting results in the kind of slapstick humor that most readers mean when they talk about how "funny" the book is. Yet, Fielding knew that humor could and should have a more serious aspect, which he saw as sober satire. For him, as for Swift, satire meant holding society up to a crooked mirror--sort of the kind that one sees at fun houses--and exposing by crooked exaggeration the misdeeds of that society. This concept of sober satire is hinted at in the person of Parson Adams, who also figures prominently right there on the title page with that little note about Cervantes. Parson Adams is Don Quixote reborn. He does ridiculous things for which the reader rightfully laughs at for that. Yet, Parson Adams has a more reflective side too. Though he is betrayed, he forgives. Though he is injured, he holds on to his innocence. And though he is hurt, he laughs. Compare his actions to the half dozen other parsons and what emerges is that these other parsons are licentuous, venal, and downright corrupt. Fielding was concerned with the same worry of every writer from Chaucer to himself: what can the ordinary man hope for when his supposed exemplars of virtue--the clergy--are unvirtuous? Well, in the satirical world of JOSEPH ANDREWS there was a little bit of an otherwise evil world that was evil free. When Fielding's readers laughed at the foibles of Andrews and Adams, their laughter was tempered by the realization that their funny universe was only a hairsbreath away from one was that tragic too.

Great Classic Humorous Novel
My sense of humor might be a bit off from the norm (my kids' opinion) so you may not find this mid-eighteenth century novel as funny as I do. I think it's just about the funniest book I've ever read. Not only is it funny but Fielding points a sharply satirical finger at just about everyone living in England at the time. One of the things that I love about the older books is their insight into history: though it's an obvious satire (much like the work of Cervantes) there's so much history here. Yet you see yourself and your neighbors here as well. We're still surrounded by people who are petty, pompous, flirtatious, morose - what have you - while we remain paragons of virtue. In a sense this is Joseph's problem: he's a good kid trying to make it in a crazy world (still a modern story). He's simple and kind and believes others around him to be the same. He's continually amazed when they prove otherwise. Really a good book.

Joseph Andrews and Shamela
Romping good fun and sharply satirical. Fielding has none of the puritanical prejudices of his contemporary and rival Samuel Richardson.Rather he gives a graphic, humourous and insightful glimpse ofeighteenth century ruralshannanigans. Both stories are to some extent aresponse to Richardson's goodie goodie novel Pamela or Virtue Rewarded,Shamela in fact so much so- mimicking then epistulatory narrative and burlesquing the characters and style of theoriginal novel- that you'llmiss most of the jokes unless you've read Richardson first. Jospeh Andrewsis far more substantial and rewarding containing the full range both ofFielding's humour and social concerns. Vividly presenting the self-servingcynicism ofEnglish society his particular speciality lies in puncturingpomposity by comically abrupt opposistions between what his characterspreach and practise. Detached, sarcastic and well-read Fielding somehowmanages to mixslapstick with Homer, blend eupheimism with innuendo andmangle anyone that he has a grudge against. A novel of the road- if youliked this, you'll love Tom Jones. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

English Lit
I had to read this book for a college fiction class. I thought it wouldnt get any worse then this. However to my surprise this book was quite enjoyable in a classical kind of way! My professor said that this is supposed to be one of the first novels ever written and I was surprised that it had all the basics of a great modern read. Love,Sex,and Betrayel.

If you have to read this book dont be discourgaged its not all that bad. (smile) ... Read more

Book Description
Offers a modernized text, supported by detailed explanatory notes. Copley's introduction describes the literary and historical context in which Joseph Andrews appearedm with particular emphasis on its relation to Pamela. ... Read more

Book Description
". . . More delicately faithful and true are Colonel James and his wife. They are both very good sort of people in a way, who live in a lax and frivolous age, who have plenty of money, no particular principle, no strong affection for each other, and little individual character. They might have been -- Mrs. James to some extent is -- quite estimable and harmless; but even as it is, they are not to be wholly ill spoken of. Being what they are, Fielding has taken them, and, with a relentlessness which Swift could hardly have exceeded, and a good nature which Swift rarely or never attained, has held them up to us as dissected preparations of half-innocent meanness, scoundrelism, and vanity, such as are hardly anywhere else to be found. I have used the word 'preparations,' and it in part indicates Fielding's virtue, a virtue shown, I think, in this book as much as anywhere. But it does not fully indicate it; for the preparation, wet or dry, is a dead thing, and a museum is but a mortuary. Fielding's men and women, once more let it be said, are all alive. The palace of his work is the hall, not of Eblis, but of a quite beneficent enchanter, who puts burning hearts into his subjects, not to torture them, but only that they may light up for us their whole organization and being. They are not in the least the worse for it, and we are infinitely the better." -- From editor George Saintsbury's Introduction ... Read more

Book Description
Tom, a foundling, is discovered one evening by the benevolent Squire Allworthy and his sister Bridget and brought up as a son in their household; when his sexual escapades and general misbehavior lead them to banish him, he sets out in search of both his fortune and his true identity. Amorous, high-spirited, and filled with what Fielding called “the glorious lust of doing good,” but with a tendency toward dissolution, Tom Jones is one of the first characters in English fiction whose human virtues and vices are realistically depicted. This edition is set from the text of the Wesleyan Edition of the Works of Henry Fielding. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

short attention span theatre
I remember really liking "Joseph Andrews", another famous novel by this author.I remember it being funny. I just couldn't get into this one.It takes a while to get going.The basic plot is that Tom is a foundling, in love with a wealthier girl, but Tom is forced to leave his home.After many complications, including Tom's somewhat "innocent" infidelities, you can guess what happens. It's sort of a male version of a Jane Austen novel, with more travel involved, and more comedy.Maybe my attention span is shrinking.

A Wonderful Adventure
This novel is worth it for the following lines spoken by Parson Thwackum:

"When I mention religion," said the parson, "I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church of England. And when I mention honour, I mean that mode of divine grace which is not only consistent with but dependent upon this religion, and is consistent and dependent upon no other" (p. 105).

Very amusing, but think of the centuries when men like that had supreme political power--then to laugh, to doubt meant to be burned alive.Michael Servetus (1511-1553) was burned alive by John Calvin for doubting the Holy Trinity and preaching Unitarianism.Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was burned for similar heresies.

There is no end to the evil that men like Parson Thwackum would do if they had power. We must stand forever on guard against such views of religion.

Great (!!!!) Book
This is a great read, though not one for the feint of heart (or the feint of attention span). The plot is slow to get moving, and there are long detours that a pragmatic reader might find frustrating. But, once the plot gets going, it is truly a masterpiece. My first time through Tom Jones, I stayed up all night to read the last couple hundred pages, because I literally couldn't put it down. ... Read more

Book Description
A foundling of mysterious parentage brought up by Mr. Allworthy on his country estate, Tom Jones is deeply in love with the seemingly unattainable Sophia Western, the beautiful daughter of the neighboring squire—though he sometimes succumbs to the charms of the local girls. When Tom is banished to make his own fortune and Sophia follows him to London to escape an arranged marriage, the adventure begins. A vivid Hogarthian panorama of eighteenth-century life, spiced with danger and intrigue, bawdy exuberance and good-natured authorial interjections, Tom Jones is one of the greatest and most ambitious comic novels in English literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

There is only one Tom Jones
and he was a foundling. This is the most wonderful novel in English, in my humble opinion. It is a totally delightful romp through 18th Cetury England and a true classic of literature. The other Tom Jones, the Welsh one, does not hold a candle to our dear Tom who adored the charming Sophia and goes on a journey of self discovery.

Greatest comic novel ever written
I wouldn't bother writing a review of this novel, since it stands alone as the greatest comic novel ever written, and certainly doesn't need my help.But I can't help responding to the review of the Patriarch.Puck:"Lord, what fools these mortals be."Looking at the sophistication of this reviewer, I assume that he will make the mistake of thinking Puck must be a spectator at a hockey game.Get this book.Read it again and again.Just about everything you need to know about human nature is in this book, and indeed, the author makes the statement in the opening that indeed, his subject is "human nature."

Please ignore the other reviewer
This is a classic piece of literature and very entertaining. I was very surprised to find that it had a one star score on Amazon until I read the only review for it, which accused Fielding of writing this as a fake history of the singer Tom Jones. To anyone in doubt, this book was first published on February 28, 1749. Yes, 1749. Tom Jones the singer was born in 1940. So...

It's not unusual...to be disappointed with this book
Hey everyone, this is going to be a sad review. Because I've been having an off day today. To cheer myself up I went to the local library. Well, they had nothing. Just the kind of books you find at yard sales. But I spot what appears to be a diamond in the rough. The history of Tom Jones. Now your's truly has been a fan of Tom Jones from the very begin. And since it's been awhile, I thought I'd read this book to see just what Tom Jones life was like. Now after reading this book for some time I realize this book is not about Tom Jones at all! It's just some author's brilliant scheme to make people buy his book. Imagine if I wrote a book and called it, "Paul McCartney, a biography or the Life and Times of John Lennon when the books had nothing to do with either of these people. That's pretty much what we have here. What's next Mr. Henry Fielding, if that is even your real name, The History of Wayne Newton? Anyway, thank God we have Amazon so people could expose these confidence artists for they really are. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Earliest Is Still the Best
Although Tom Jones is one of the first English novels, it remains my all time favorite, which is saying a lot since I majored in English and have read too many pieces of fiction to count.It is the only novel I have read more than 2 times. The plot is quite inventive, the characters vivid and the romp through 18th Century England engaging. The style of writing may take awhile to get used to for a modern reader, but perserverence will pay off. Enjoy!!

Best Novel ever written?
How do you write a review on what may be the best novel ever written. Charming and wonderfuly written and still hold up almost 300 years later. Funny, thought provoking as Fielding shines light on morale hypocrisy. I did not want this book to end, can there be a better commentary on a book then that? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Earliest Is Still the Best
Although Tom Jones is one of the first English novels, it remains my all time favorite, which is saying a lot since I majored in English and have read too many pieces of fiction to count.It is the only novel I have read more than 2 times. The plot is quite inventive, the characters vivid and the romp through 18th Century England engaging. The style of writing may take awhile to get used to for a modern reader, but perserverence will pay off. Enjoy!!

Best Novel ever written?
How do you write a review on what may be the best novel ever written. Charming and wonderfuly written and still hold up almost 300 years later. Funny, thought provoking as Fielding shines light on morale hypocrisy. I did not want this book to end, can there be a better commentary on a book then that? ... Read more

Book Description
Critical unmodernized texts of Fielding's legal and social pamphlets from 1749 to 1753. ... Read more

Book Description
'he carried Good-nature to that wonderful and uncommon Height, that he never did a single Injury to Man or Woman, by which he himself did not expect to reap some Advantage'The real-life Jonathan Wild, gangland godfather and self-styled 'Thieftaker General', controlled much of the London underworld until he was executed for his crimes in 1725.Even during his lifetime his achievements attracted attention; after his death balladeers sang of his exploits, and satirists made connections between his success and the triumph of corruption in high places. Henry Fielding built on these narratives to produce one of the greatest sustained satires in the English language.Published in 1743, at a time when the modern novel had yet to establish itself as a fixed literary form, Jonathan Wild is at the same time a brilliant black comedy, an incisive political satire, and a profoundly serious exploration of human 'greatness' and 'goodness'. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

What a wolf is in a sheepfold, a great man is in society
For Henry Fielding, 'great men', like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, and 'great rogues', like Jonathan Wild, are synonymous terms. Greatness consists in bringing all manners of mischief on mankind.
Alexander the Great overran a whole empire with fire and sword, pillaging, sacking, burning, enslaving and destroying millions of his fellow creatures. Julius Caesar abolished the republican liberties of his country in order to take the power into his own hands.
At the opposite side of the spectrum, Jonathan Wild was a great prig (pick-pocket), cheating the very tools who were his instruments to cheat others: 'I had rather stand at the summit of a dunghill, than at the bottom of a hill in paradise.'

For Henry Fielding, greatness rimes with ambition, lust, avarice, rapaciousness, hypocrisy, power, pride, insolence, insatiability, 'a privilege to kill, a strong temptation to do bravely ill'. Greatness is 'playing with the passions of men, to work one's own purposes out of the jealousies and apprehensions to create those great arts which the vulgar call treachery, dissembling, promising, lying, falshood, summed up in the collective name of POLLITRICKS.'
And all that for what? Not for the general good of society, but for the power and the glory of the great man himself, for the satisfaction of his vices.
The fact that 'he is hated and detested by all mankind makes him inwardly satisfied. Otherwise, why should he stand at the head of a multitude of prigs, called an army, in order to molest his neighbours, to introduce rape, rapine, bloodshed and every kind of misery on his own species, to desire maliciously to rob those subjects, to reduce them to an absolute dependence on his own will, to betray the interest of his fellow-subjects, of his brethren.'
Jonathan Wild: 'I ought rather weep with Alexander, that I have ruined not more.'

Another target of the author are the hypocritical priests: 'Life is sweet, I had rather live to eternity ... so many wallow in wealth and preferment.'
He insults the ordinary, who attends to the spiritual needs of condemned criminals; 'You are more unmerciful to me than the Judge.'

Henry Fielding's forceful diatribe against all conquerers, tyrants, pollitrickers, and vicious 'prigs' still sounds extremely modern.
He blames the majority of mankind to continue to praise the said great men.
But, 'there are still some, who view these great men with a malignant eye and dare affirm that these great men are always the most pernicious and generally the most wretched and truly contemptible of all works of creation.'

This book is a ferocious and, unfortunately, still very topical satire.
A must read. ... Read more

Book Description
This is the first of three volumes representing the only modern edition of Fielding's dramatic works. Most of these plays have not appeared in print for a century, and never previously in edited form. Fielding came to the novel-writing for which he is best known after an important first career in professional theatre. He wrote twenty-eight plays, including comedies, satiric extravaganzas, and ballad operas. He was the leading playwright of his generation, an experimentalist and entrepreneur in a cheerfully mocking form of drama journalistically devoted to contemporary experience, culture, and politics. This volume presents the first seven of these plays in a critical unmodernized edition based on the original texts, with explanatory notes and commentary on sources, stage history, and critical reception, as well as appendices accounting for textual variation, bibliography, and musical sources. ... Read more

Book Description
'I beg as soon as you get Fielding's Joseph Andrews, I fear in Ridicule of your Pamela and of Virtue in the Notion of Don Quixote's Manner, youwould send it to me by the very first Coach.' (George Cheyne in a letter to Samuel Richardson, February 1742) Both Joseph Andrews (1742) and Shamela (1741) were prompted by the success of Richardson's Pamela (1740), of which Shamela is a splendidly bawdy parody.But in Shamela Fielding also demonstrates his concern for the corruption of contemporary society, politics, religion, morality, and taste.The same themes - together with a presentation of love as charity, as friendship, and in its sexual taste - are present in Joseph Andrews, Fielding's first novel.It is a work of considerable literary sophistication and satirical verve, but its appeal lies also in its spirit of comic affirmation, epitomized in the celebrated character of Parson Adams. This revised and expanded edition follows the text of Joseph Andrews established by Martin C. Battestin for the definitive Wesleyan Edition of Fielding's works.The text of Shamela is based on the first edition, and two substantial appendices reprint the preliminary matter from Conyers Middleton's Life of Cicero and the second edition of Richardson's Pamela (both closely parodied in Shamela).A new introduction by Thomas Keymer situates Fielding's works in their critical and historical contexts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

unreservedly recommended
So I was getting ready to reread Don Quijote (1605)(Miguel de Cervantes 1547-1616)in the excellent Burton Raffel translation and as I was looking for information about the bookand author, saw repeated references to Fielding's Joseph Andrews.I'd read his Tom Jones a couple ofyears ago and found it kind of tough sledding, but when I stumbled upon this one at a library book salefor a quarter, it seemed a stroke of destiny.

The parallels with Don Quijote are readily apparent.First of all, the book consists of a series ofhumorous travel adventures; second, the travellers involved seem too innocent to survive in the harshworld that confronts them.When Joseph Andrews, the naive footman of Lady Booby, deflects theamorous advances of both her Ladyship and Slipslop, the Lady's servant, he is sent packing.Upon hisdismissal, Joseph, along with his friend and mentor Parson Adams, an idealistic and good-hearted ruralclergyman, who essentially takes the physical role of Sancho Panza but the moral role of Quijote, setsout to find his beloved but chaste enamorata, Fanny Goodwill, who had earlier been dismissed fromLady Booby's service as a result of Slipslop's jealousy. In their travels they are set upon repeatedly byrobbers, continually run out of funds and Adams gets in numerous arguments, theological andotherwise.Meanwhile, Fanny, whom they meet up with along the way, is nearly raped any number oftimes and is eventually discovered to be Joseph's sister, or maybe not..The whole thing concludes witha farcical night of musical beds, mistaken identities and astonishing revelations.

I've seen this referred to as the first modern novel; I'm not sure why, in light of it's obvious debt toCervantes.But it does combine those quixotic elements with a seemingly accurate portrayal of 18thCentury English manners and the central concern with identity and status do place it squarely in themodern tradition.

At any rate, it is very funny and, for whatever reason, seemed a much easier read than Tom Jones.Irecommend it unreservedly.

GRADE: B+ ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program. ... Read more

Product Description
EDITED BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY ... Read more