Showing results by author "Henry Fielding" in All Categories

Tom Jones, a foundling, is brought up by the kindly Mr. Allworthy as if he were his own son. Forced to leave the house as a young man after tales of his disgraceful behavior reach his benefactor's ears, he sets out in utter despair, not only because of his banishment but because he has now lost all hope of gaining the hand of the beautiful Sophia. But she too is forced to flee her parental home to escape an undesirable marriage and their stories and adventures intertwine.

Tom Jones is a splendid Hogarthian panorama of 18th century English life and morals, encompassing both city and country, and comprising some of the greatest comic characters in British literature. First published in 1749, it was an instant success and has gone on to become a classic of its genre. Quite simply, there has never been anything like it.

In one of the first novels in the English language, we follow the picaresque adventures of Joseph Andrews, a virtuous young man who is keen to maintain his innocence despite being coerced by nearly every woman he encounters.

A foundling of mysterious parentage, Tom Jones is brought up by the benevolent and wealthy Squire Allworthy as his own son. Tom falls in love with the beautiful and unattainable Sophia Western, a neighbor’s daughter, whose marriage has already been arranged. When Tom’s sexual misadventures around the countryside get him banished, he sets out to make his fortune and find his true identity.

Riotous, sexy and groundbreaking, Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews: The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, published in 1742, was one of the first English novels. Fielding was melding and parodying the two major forces battling for control of the fiction market at the time - the mock heroic, neoclassical tradition as practiced by Pope and Swift and the popular and populist fiction of the new novelists such as Defoe and Richardson.

Henry Fielding è considerato uno dei padri fondatori del romanzo realista inglese. Tale scopo sarà pienamente raggiunto da Fielding nel suo capolavoro, Tom Jones (1749), uno dei più grandi romanzi della letteratura inglese. La storia narra le divertenti disavventure e peregrinazioni del giovane Tom Jones e della sua amata Sophia Western unendo a una trama sapiente e a pagine di garbata satira personaggi di grande efficacia e presenza, per fornire uno spaccato della società inglese dell'epoca. Cornice musicale di Georg Friedrich Haendel.

Dubbed 'the father of the English novel' by Sir Walter Scott, Henry Fielding is well known for his ribald humour and ironic, satirical fiction. Collected here are four of his most famous works, including his comic masterpiece Tom Jones, as well as a fascinating documentary exploring the foundling motif in fiction.

Shamela is a bawdy, spirited, and hilarious response to Samuel Richardson's hugely popular 1740 novel, Pamela. In this pointed satire, Shamela (which transpires to be the real name of Richardson's Pamela) reveals the ulterior motives behind the events that took place in Pamela. Shamela is unlike the virtuous young lady portrayed in Richardson's novel and she takes command of her master, Squire Booby. Our heroine has planned it all out from the start and she is determined to entrap her master into marriage.

Penguin Classics presents Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actor Robert Lindsay. ‘Sir, I am concerned at the Trouble I give you; nay indeed my Nakedness may well make me ashamed to look you in the Face… Jones offered her his Coat; but, I know not for what Reason, she absolutely refused the most earnest Solicitations to accept it’.

The ‘Voice of the Year’ competition introduced and sponsored by Naxos AudioBooks and The Times books pages, edited by Erica Wagner, took place in Spring 2004. Readers without any formal drama training or professional acting experience were invited to send in recordings of a short extract of either Dickens, Austen or from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and an own choice. The judging panel - Martin Jarvis, Juliet Stevenson, and Anton Lesser, with John Tydeman, David Timson, and Christina Hardyment....

Fielding's rollicking comic masterpiece sparkles with life in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatization. Abandoned child Tom is raised by the rich and benevolent squire Mr. Allworthy, much to the chagrin of Allworthy's mean-natured nephew Blifil, and develops into a good-natured rake. But Tom's inability to resist a pretty face lands him in hot water when he impregnates Blifil's betrothed. When the lovely Sophia runs away to London, Tom pursues, embarking upon a series of riotous and amorous adventures.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Henry Fielding's rollicking comic masterpiece. Found one evening in the bed of the rich and benevolent Mr Allworthy, baby Tom grows up in the guardianship of the kindly squire. He develops into a good-hearted fellow who is nonetheless resented by Allworthy's mean-natured heir and nephew, Blifil. Tom's naive inability to resist a pretty face lands him in hot water when the gamekeeper's daughter declares herself pregnant.

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. First published on 28 February 1749, Tom Jones is among the earliest English prose works describable as a novel. Tom Jones is a foundling discovered on the property of a very kind, wealthy landowner, Squire Allworthy, in Somerset in England's West Country. Tom grows into a vigorous and lusty, yet honest and kind-hearted, youth.

Henry Fielding’s riotous tale of innocents in a corrupt world was one of the earliest English novels, blending bawdy slapstick, philosophical musing, and pointed social satire to create a work of moral complexity and generous, life-affirming humanity. Published in 1742, it tells the story of the chaste servant Joseph Andrews who, after being sacked for spurning the advances of the lascivious Lady Booby, takes to the road, accompanied by his beloved Fanny Goodwill and the absent-minded, much put-upon Parson Adams.

Tom Jones is widely regarded as one of the first and most influential English novels. It is certainly the funniest. Tom Jones, the hero of the book, is introduced to the reader as the ward of a liberal Somerset squire. Tom is a generous but slightly wild and feckless country boy with a weakness for young women. Misfortune, followed by many spirited adventures as he travels to London to seek his fortune, teach him a sort of wisdom to go with his essential good-heartedness.

Tom is thrown out of his foster father's house for "crimes" that he didn't commit, and proceeds to have numerous bawdy adventures and fights, eventually finding that only his true love can save him from a life that could possibly end at the gallows.

Tom Jones is widely regarded as Fielding's greatest novel, a wonderful, picaresque adventure that takes Tom, a foundling, on a hilarious and by turns scandalous journey, rife with amorous encounters that often incur the wrath of those around him.

This is Stephen Wyatt's adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic comic adventure. Episode 1: The wealthy Squire Allworthy steps into bed and finds an infant wrapped between his sheets. Episode 2: Tom is banished from the home in which he has spent his entire life. Episode 3: Tom follows his true love Sophia to London and receives an invitation to a masked ball.

Volume 2 continues our story by picking up with the flight of Sophia from her father, Squire Western, and continues the journey of Tom as he ponders his future on the road to London. In a series of tightly constructed plot twists and turns, Tom and Sophia end up at the same inn, unbeknownst to one another. Meanwhile, a plethora of new characters are introduced.

Tom Jones is greatly admired not only for the meticulous craft with which it was written, but also for its humor, objectivity and penetrating psychological depth. It is without a doubt one of the great contributions to the English novel, and as such will always maintain a place of honor in world literature. Through the minute examination of the motives of his characters, Henry Fielding revealed many universal truths about human nature.