"Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
was born at Sharpham Park in Somerset in 1707. In London, between 1729
and 1739, he
wrote some twenty-five
dramatic pieces including a series of topical satires which lampooned Sir
Robert Walpole and his
government. It was
partly as a reaction to these that Walpole introduced the Stage Licensing
Act in 1737, which effectively
ended Fielding's career
as a dramatist.
"His novel writing career
began with Shamela in 1741, a burlesque written in reaction to what he
saw as the smug morality
propounded by Richardson's
Pamela. In the following year he published his own alternative conception
of the art and
purpose of the novel,
Joseph Andrews, which achieved immediate popularity.
"His masterpiece Tom
Jones, one of the great comic novels in English literature, was published
in 1749. Partly in
recognition of his
work as a political journalist Fielding was commissioned as a justice of
the peace for Westminster and,
despite his rapidly
degenerating health, he devoted the last years of his life to fighting
crime. He died in Lisbon on 8
October 1754."