Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

This Easton Press edition presents Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, the sprawling 1749 novel that stands as one of English literature’s great comic achievements. The narrative follows Tom Jones from infancy through young adulthood as he navigates 18th-century England’s social landscape.

Discovered as an infant and raised by the generous Squire Allworthy, Tom grows into a good-hearted but impulsive young man whose sexual indiscretions and perceived misdeeds lead to his expulsion from the estate. He loves Sophia Western, daughter of a neighboring squire, but obstacles—including her father’s preference for the odious Blifil and Tom’s own romantic entanglements—stand between them.

The novel sends Tom on a picaresque journey through England, encountering highwaymen, prostitutes, soldiers, and various representatives of society’s strata. Fielding interrupts the narrative with essayistic chapters commenting on his artistic choices, human nature, and contemporary society, creating a self-aware work that examines its own construction.

Fielding contrasts Tom’s natural goodness—flawed but sincere—with the calculating hypocrisy of supposedly virtuous characters like Blifil. The plot builds toward revelations about Tom’s true parentage and his eventual union with Sophia.

Witty, expansive, and structurally sophisticated, Tom Jones helped establish the novel as a serious literary form while demonstrating that moral complexity and entertainment could coexist. Fielding’s narrative voice—urbane, knowing, generous—remains one of literature’s most engaging.