Henry Fielding (1707-1754) was an influential English novelist and playwright known as the "Father of the English Novel". Some of his major contributions include introducing structure to novel development and creating the first modern novel "Tom Jones". In it, he introduced a new kind of fictional hero with ordinary weaknesses. Throughout his career, Fielding attempted to give the novel status by relating it to classical epics. He had a successful career as a playwright but was forced to pursue law and journalism after the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737 ended his career on the stage. His greatest and most acclaimed work was "The History of Tom Jones" published in 1749, which is considered one of the greatest comic novels
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) was an influential English novelist and playwright known as the "Father of the English Novel". Some of his major contributions include introducing structure to novel development and creating the first modern novel "Tom Jones". In it, he introduced a new kind of fictional hero with ordinary weaknesses. Throughout his career, Fielding attempted to give the novel status by relating it to classical epics. He had a successful career as a playwright but was forced to pursue law and journalism after the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737 ended his career on the stage. His greatest and most acclaimed work was "The History of Tom Jones" published in 1749, which is considered one of the greatest comic novels
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) was an influential English novelist and playwright known as the "Father of the English Novel". Some of his major contributions include introducing structure to novel development and creating the first modern novel "Tom Jones". In it, he introduced a new kind of fictional hero with ordinary weaknesses. Throughout his career, Fielding attempted to give the novel status by relating it to classical epics. He had a successful career as a playwright but was forced to pursue law and journalism after the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737 ended his career on the stage. His greatest and most acclaimed work was "The History of Tom Jones" published in 1749, which is considered one of the greatest comic novels
On October 8, 1754, famous English novelist, journalist and dramatist Henry Fielding passed away. He is best known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones. Henry Fielding influenced the main tradition of the English novel through the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century. One of his major contribution to the English novel was a sense of structure to its development. With his Tom Jones, Fielding introduced a new kind of fictional hero - a good hearted, well intentioned young man with ordinary human weakness, one who yields to temptation with women and to make errors in judgement. Throughout his works, Fielding attempted to give dignity and status to the genre of the novel by relating it to the classical epic. Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham in Glastonbury in Somerset in 1707 as the son of an army lieutenant and a judge's daughter. Fielding was born at Sharpham and was educated at Eton College, He was educated at Eton School, where he established a lifelong friendship with William Pitt the Elder - the famous British Whig statesman who led Britain during the Seven Years' War. After a romantic episode with a young woman that ended in his getting into trouble with the law, he went to London where his literary career began. In 1728, he travelled to Leiden to study classics and law at the University. However, due to lack of money, he was obliged to return to London and he began writing a series of farces, operas and light comedies for the theatre, some of his work being savagely critical of the contemporary government. "To say the truth, every physician almost hath his favourite disease" The History of Tom Jones (Henry Fielding, 1749) In London, Fielding formed his own company and was running the Little Theatre, Haymarket, when one of his satirical plays began to upset the government. The passing of the Theatrical Licensing Act in 1737 effectively ended Fielding's career as a playwright. He retired from the theatre and resumed his career in law and, in order to support his wife Charlotte Cradock and two children, he became a barrister. His lack of financial sense meant that he and his family often endured periods of poverty. But, Fielding never stopped writing. In 1739, he turned to journalism and became editor of The Champion. Almost by accident, in anger at the success of Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, Fielding took to writing novels in 1741. His is first major success was Shamela, an anonymous parody of Richardson's original melodramatic novel. He immediately published The Adventures of Joseph Andrews in 1742, an original work supposedly dealing with Pamela's brother, Joseph. Although he begun to write the novel also as a parody, this work developed into an accomplished novel in its own right and is considered to mark Fielding's debut as a serious novelist. His greatest work however was The History of Tom Jones published in 1749 to public acclaim, a meticulously constructed picaresque novel telling the convoluted and hilarious tale of how a foundling came into a fortune. Critics agree that it is one of the greatest comic novels in the English language. In 1748, Henry Fielding was made a justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex. He campaigned against legal corruption and helped his younger half-brother, Sir John Fielding, to establish London's first police force, the Bow Street Runners. Actually, the brothers are considered two of the best magistrates in eighteenth-century London, for they did a great deal to enhance the cause of judicial reform and improve prison conditions. In January 1752, Fielding continued as a journalist and started a biweekly periodical titled The Covent-Garden Journal, in which he also continued to upset those in power. Throughout his life, Fielding suffered from poor health and his ardent commitment to the cause of justice as a great humanitarian coincided with a rapid deterioration in his health. By 1752 he could not move without the help of crutches because of gout and asthma. In an attempt to overcome his health problems, Henry Fielding went to live in Portugal for a cure but this was not successful and he died in Lisbon in 1754. Considering his art, Fielding believed, as did most eighteenth century writers and educated readers, that it is the purpose of art to create pleasure which is both civilized and civilizing.