Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, Somerset, and by birth a gentleman, close allied to the aristocracy. His father was a nephew of the 3th Earl of Denbigha, and mother was from a prominent family of lawyers. Fielding grew up on his parents farm at East Stour, Dotset. His mother died when Fielding was eleven, and when his father remarried Henry was sent to Eton, where he studied at Eton College (1719-1724).
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 succesfully performed at Drury Lane. In the same year he went to the University of Leiden in the Neatherlands, enlarging his knowledge of classical literature. After a some 18 months he returned to England, devoting himself to writing for the stage. He become also manager of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. In 1730 he had four plays produced, among them TOM THUMB. In 1736 Fielding took over the management of the New Theatre, writing for it among others satirical comedy PASQUIN.
However, Fielding's sharp burlesques satirizing the government gained the attention of the prime minister Sir Robert Walpole and Fielding's career in theater was ended by Theatrical Licensing Act. In search for an altrnative career he become then editor of the magazine Champion, an opposition journal, and 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, of which best known are THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING (1749) 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, and with whom he enjoyed ten years of happiness until her death in 1744. During his career 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 After Walpole had been replaced by another prime minister, Fielding came to the defence of the Establishment.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, and his writings become more socially orientated, opposing among others public hangings. From his court in Bow Street he continued his struggle against corruption and and saw successfully implemented a plan for breaking up the criminal gangs who were then flourishing in London.
When Fiending's health was failing and he was forced to use crutches, Fielding went with his wife and one of his daughters to Portugal to recuperate, but he 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 Foundlingwas enthusiastically reveived 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 and the tangled comedies of coincidence are offset by the neat, architectonic structure of the story. The kindly, prosperous Mr Allworthy finds a baby boy on his bed and adopts the mysterious child, naming it Tom Jones. Allworthy suspects that Jenny Jones, a maid-servant to the wife of the schoolmaster Partridge, is the mother, but 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 Indentity 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)
Selected works:
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