Henry Fielding - the Father of the English Novel

Henry Fielding (1707-1754)

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.