Henry Fielding was born on 22 April 1707 at Sharpham Park, the seat of his mother's family inSharpham, Somerset. He was the son of Lt.-Gen. Edmund Fielding and Sarah Gould, daughter of Sir Henry Gould. A scion of theEarl of Denbigh, his father was nephew of William Fielding, 3rd Earl of Denbigh.[2]
Educated atEton College, Fielding began a lifelong friendship withWilliam Pitt the Elder.[3] His mother died when he was 11. A suit for custody was brought by his grandmother against his charming but irresponsible father, Lt Gen.Edmund Fielding. The settlement placed Henry in his grandmother's care, but he continued to see his father in London.[4]
In 1725, Henry tried to abduct his cousin Sarah Andrews, with whom he was infatuated, while she was on her way to church. He fled to avoid prosecution.[5]
In 1728, Fielding travelled toLeiden to study classics and law at the university.[3] Penury forced him back to London, where he began writing for the theatre. Some of his work savagely criticised the government of Prime Minister SirRobert Walpole.
Returning from his studies at Leiden late in 1729, Fielding “came up to London … thrown upon his own resources” and determined to earn his living by the pen.[6] Early the next year he enlisted fellow writerJames Ralph to provide the prologue for his comedyThe Temple Beau (licensed January 1730).[7] Ralph’s recently published miscellanyThe Touch-Stone; or, The Taste of the Town (1728; re-issued 1731) urged dramatists to abandon imported opera and classical heroes in favour of “home-bred” stories, mocked the vogue for “merry Tragedies,” and celebrated the satirical possibilities of puppet shows and fair-ground spectacle.[8]
Fielding’s response was almost instantaneous.The Author’s Farce; or, The Pleasures of the Town opened at the Haymarket on 30 March 1730 with a concluding puppet-show whose dramatis personae—Don Tragedio, Signior Opera, Monsieur Pantomime, Mrs Novel, Punch and Jack Pudding—mirror the catalogue in Ralph’s treatise.[9] Its dialogue repeats Ralph’s gibes at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs and even alludes to the recent “rabbit-woman” hoax of 1726.[10] Barely a month later, on 24 April 1730, Fielding produced the two-act afterpieceTom Thumb (expanded in 1731 asThe Tragedy of Tragedies). Echoing Ralph’s programme, the preface hails “home-bred Subjects,” the prologue ridicules tragedies that aim chiefly to raise laughter, and the play itself casts a diminutive hero amid outsized props while repeating the comic story of the protagonist “dropp’d in a pudding.”[11] These two farces mark Fielding’s decisive pivot from polite comedy to the satirical burlesque that would dominate his dramatic output throughout the 1730s and shape the ironic voice of his later novels.[12]
According to George R. Levine, Henry Fielding, in his first writings used two forms of "rhetorical poses" that were popular during the eighteenth century.[13] Henry Fielding would construct "the non-ironic pseudonym such as Addison and Steele used in theSpectator, and the ironic mask orPersona, such as Swift used in A Modest Proposal."[13] TheTheatrical Licensing Act 1737 is said to be a direct response to his activities in writing for the theatre.[3][14] Although the play that triggered the act was the unproduced, anonymously authoredThe Golden Rump, Fielding's dramatic satires had set the tone. Once it was passed, political satire on stage became all but impossible. Fielding retired from the theatre and resumed his legal career to support his wife Charlotte Craddock and two children by becoming abarrister,[3][14] joining theMiddle Temple in 1737 and beingcalled to the bar there in 1740.[15]
Fielding's lack of financial acumen meant the family often endured periods of poverty, but they were helped byRalph Allen, a wealthy benefactor, on whom Squire Allworthy inTom Jones would be based. Allen went on to provide for the education and support of Fielding's children after the writer's death.
Henry Fielding, about 1743, etching fromJonathan Wild
Fielding never stopped writing political satire and satires of current arts and letters. Issued in 1731, the printed playThe Tragedy of Tragedies—for whichWilliam Hogarth supplied a celebrated frontispiece—proved especially popular. Published under the pseudonym “H. Scriblerus Secundus”, a pseudonym intended to link himself ideally with theScriblerus Club of literary satirists founded byJonathan Swift,Alexander Pope andJohn Gay.[5] He also contributed several works to journals.
From 1734 to 1739, Fielding wrote anonymously for the leadingTory periodical,The Craftsman, against the Prime Minister, SirRobert Walpole.[16] His patron was the oppositionWhig MPGeorge Lyttelton, a boyhood friend from Eton to whom he later dedicatedTom Jones. Lyttelton followed his leaderLord Cobham in forming a Whig opposition to Walpole's government called theCobhamites, which included another of Fielding's Eton friends, William Pitt.[17] InThe Craftsman, Fielding voiced an opposition attack on bribery and corruption in British politics.[18] Despite writing for the opposition to Walpole, which included Tories as well as Whigs, Fielding was "unshakably aWhig" and often praised Whig heroes such as theDuke of Marlborough andGilbert Burnet.[19]
Fielding dedicated his playDon Quixote in England to the opposition Whig leaderLord Chesterfield. It appeared on 17 April 1734, the same day writs were issued for thegeneral election.[20] He dedicated his 1735 playThe Universal Gallant toCharles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, a political follower of Chesterfield.[21] The other prominent opposition paper,Common Sense, founded by Chesterfield and Lyttelton, was named after a character in Fielding'sPasquin (1736). Fielding wrote at least two articles for it in 1737 and 1738.[22]
Fielding continued to air political views in satirical journalism in the late 1730s and early 1740s. He co-founded and initially edited the thrice-weeklyThe Champion; or, British Mercury (launched 15 November 1739), writing under the persona “Captain Hercules Vinegar”;[23] from April 1740 it appeared asChampion; or, Evening Advertiser.[24] Fielding remained principal editor until June 1741, whenJames Ralph succeeded him;[25] the paper continued until 31 August 1742.[26]
After stepping down from the paper, Fielding turned to prose fiction. In response to the popularity ofSamuel Richardson’sPamela, he issued the anonymous parodyShamela, his first success in the new form.[27]
Fielding followed this withJoseph Andrews (1742), an original work supposedly dealing with Pamela's brother, Joseph.[3] His purpose was more than parody, for as stated in the preface, he intended a "kind of writing which I do not remember to have seen hitherto attempted in our language." In what Fielding called a "comic epic poem in prouse", he blended two classical traditions: that of the epic, which had been poetic, and that of the drama, but emphasizing the comic rather than the tragic. Another distinction ofJoseph Andrews and the novels to come was use of everyday reality of character and action, as opposed to the fables of the past.[4] While begun as a parody, it developed into an accomplished novel in its own right and is seen as Fielding's debut as a serious novelist.
In 1743, he published a novel in theMiscellanies volume III, which was the first volume of the Miscellanies:The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great, which is sometimes counted as his first, as he almost certainly began it before he wroteShamela andJoseph Andrews. It is a satire of Walpole equating him andJonathan Wild, the gang leader and highwayman. He implicitly compares theWhig party inParliament with a gang of thieves run by Walpole, whose constant desire to be a "Great Man", a common epithet with Walpole, ought to culminate in the antithesis of greatness: hanging.
Fielding's anonymousThe Female Husband (1746) fictionalizes a case in which a female transvestite was tried for duping another woman into marriage. This was one of several small pamphlets costing sixpence.[6] Though a minor piece in his life's work, it reflects his preoccupation with fraud, shamming and masks.
His greatest work isThe History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), a meticulous comic novel with elements of the picaresque and theBildungsroman, telling a convoluted tale of how a foundling came into a fortune. The novel tells of Tom's alienation from his foster father, Squire Allworthy, and his sweetheart, Sophia Western, and his reconciliation with them after lively and dangerous adventures on the road and in London. It triumphs as a presentation of English life and character in the mid-18th century. Every social type is represented and through them every shade of moral behaviour. Fielding's varied style tempers the basic seriousness of the novel and his authorial comment before each chapter adds a dimension to a conventional, straightforward narrative.[4]
Fielding married Charlotte Craddock in 1734 at theChurch of St Mary inCharlcombe, Somerset.[30] She died in 1744, and he later modelled the heroines ofTom Jones and ofAmelia on her. They had five children. Their only daughter Henrietta died at the age of 23, having already been "in deep decline" when she married a military engineer,James Gabriel Montresor, some months before. Three years after Charlotte's death, Fielding disregarded public opinion by marrying her former maid Mary Daniel, who was pregnant.[14] Mary bore five children: three daughters who died young, and two sons, William and Allen.[31]
A Henry Fielding Memorial at Widcombe Lodge in Bath
Despite the scandal, Fielding's consistent anti-Jacobitism and support for theChurch of England led to his appointment a year later asWestminster's chief magistrate, while his literary career went from strength to strength. Most of his work concerned London's criminal population of thieves, informers, gamblers and prostitutes. Though living in a corrupt and callous society, he became noted for impartial judgements, incorruptibility and compassion for those whom social inequities led into crime. The income from his office ("the dirtiest money upon earth") dwindled as he refused to take money from the very poor.[4] Joined by his younger half-brotherJohn, he helped found what some call London's first police force, theBow Street Runners, in 1749.[32]
According to the historianG. M. Trevelyan, the Fieldings were two of the best magistrates in 18th-century London, who did much to enhance judicial reform and improve prison conditions. Fielding's influential pamphlets and enquiries included a proposal for abolishing public hangings. This did not, however, imply opposition to capital punishment as such – as is evident, for example, in his presiding in 1751 over the trial of the notorious criminalJames Field, finding him guilty in a robbery and sentencing him to hang. John Fielding, despite being blind by then, succeeded his older brother as chief magistrate, becoming known as the "Blind Beak of Bow Street" for his ability to recognise criminals by their voices alone.[33]
In January 1752, Fielding started a fortnightly,The Covent-Garden Journal, published under the pseudonym "Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt., Censor of Great Britain" until November of that year. Here Fielding challenged the "armies ofGrub Street" and periodical writers of the day in a conflict that became thePaper War of 1752–1753.
Fielding then publishedExamples of the Interposition of Providence in the Detection and Punishment of Murder (1752), a treatise rejecting deistic and materialistic visions of the world in favour of belief in God's presence and divine judgement,[34] arguing that the murder rate was rising due to neglect of the Christian religion.[35] In 1753 he wroteProposals for Making an Effectual Provision for the Poor.
Fielding's humanitarian commitment to justice in the 1750s, for instance, in support ofElizabeth Canning, coincided with rapid deterioration in his health.Gout,asthma andcirrhosis of the liver left him on crutches,[5] and with other afflictions sent him to Portugal in 1754 to seek a cure. He died two months later inLisbon, reportedly in pain and mental distress.[14][36] His tomb there is in theBritish Cemetery (Cemitério Inglês), the graveyard ofSt. George's Church, Lisbon.
The Female Husband or the Surprising History ofMrs Mary alias Mr George Hamilton, who was convicted of having married a young woman of Wells and lived with her as her husband, taken from her own mouth since her confinement – pamphlet, fictionalized report, 1746
The Old Debauchees (1732), originally titledThe Despairing Debauchee. Later revived asThe Becauchees; or, The Jesuit Caught
The Covent-Garden Tragedy (1732), originally appeared in rep withThe Old Debauchees, but only played one night. Eventually revived in rep withDon Quixote in England
Miss Lucy in Town, ballad farce librettist (1742), composer Thomas Arne, revived in 1770 asThe Country Madcap
Tumbledown Dick or Phaeton in the Suds (1744), ballad opera
The Wedding-Day. A Comedy. (1743)
The Fathers (1778), published posthumously with Oliver Goldsmith'sThe Good-Natur'd Man
Further Adaptations
The Opera of Operas; Or, Tom Thumb the Great Alter’d from the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great and Set to Musick after the Italian Manner. As It Is Performing at the New Theatre in the Hay-Market, (1733) written byEliza Haywood and William Hatchett, music byThomas Arne, adapted from the Fielding
Tom Thumb the Great: A Burlesque Tragedy from Fielding (1805–1810), written byKane O’Hara Esq., adapted from Fielding
Squire Badger: A burletta in two acts,Thomas Arne composer and librettist (1772), after Henry Fielding'sDon Quixote in England (1729). The work was revived under the nameThe Sot in 1775.
The Rival Queens (1794), adapted by William Holcroft from Fielding'sThe Covent-Garden Tragedy
translator of ‘’The military history ofCharles XII, King of Sweden, written by the express order of his Majesty, by M.Gustaf Adlerfelt Gustavus Adlerfeld, Chamberlain to the King. To which is added, an exact account of the Battle of Pultowa, with a Journal of the King's Retreat to Bender. Illustrated with plans of the Battles and Sieges.’’ (London, 1740).
Miscellanies – collection of works, 1743, contained the poem "Part of Juvenal's Sixth Satire, Modernized in Burlesque Verse"
^Levine, George R. (1967).Henry Fielding and the dry mock: a study of the techniques of irony in his early works. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. p. 11.ISBN978-3-11-140039-6.OCLC971364640.
^abLevine, George R. (1967).Henry Fielding and the dry mock : a study of the techniques of irony in his early works. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. p. 31.ISBN978-3-11-140039-6.OCLC971364640.
^Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, Volume I. p. 322.
^Battestin, Martin C. (1989)."Introduction".New Essays by Henry Fielding: His Contributions to the Craftsman, 1734-1739 and Other Early Journalism. University Press of Virginia.ISBN978-0-8139-1221-9., p. xvi
^Wells, John Edwin (1913). "Fielding's "Champion" and Captain Hercules Vinegar".The Modern Language Review.8 (2):165–172.
^Harris, Michael (1987).London Newspapers in the Age of Walpole: A Study of the Origins of the Modern English Press. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 201.
^Harris, Michael (1987).London Newspapers in the Age of Walpole. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 101.;Coley, W. B. (1962). "The "Remarkable Queries" in the Champion".Philological Quarterly.41:426–436.;Okie, Laird (1991).Augustan Historical Writing: Historiography in England, 1688–1750. University Press of America. p. 156.;Kenny, Robert W. (1940). "James Ralph: An Eighteenth-Century Philadelphian in Grub Street".The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.64 (2):223–224.
^Castro-Santana, Anaclara (18 August 2015). "Sham Marriages and Proper Plots: Henry Fielding's Shamela and Joseph Andrews".English Studies.96 (6):636–653.doi:10.1080/0013838X.2015.1045728.S2CID163073219.
