Tom Jones

Somewhere in the beginning Henry Fielding sets the rule of writing great fiction… …the Excellence of the mental Entertainment consists less in the Subject, than in the Author’s Skill in well dressing it up. And in full accordance with this immutable principle The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling is a......more

Who reads this and laughs not at all may be forgiven only as a simpleton, and does not comprehend. Who reads this and laughs but a little is too dour and prideful to be of much use, and only laughs when he cannot help it. Who reads this and laughs a score is the wretched false-wit, and only laughs whe......more

Here's another wonderful 18th century novel that blows up the easy breezy Shibboleth of "show, don't tell." Here the narrator tells and tells, and I laughed and laughed, and the plot moved like a fine engine through adventure after misadventure.......more

Fielding being mentioned, Johnson exclaimed, ‘he was a blockhead;’ and upon my expressing astonishment at so strange an assertion, he said ‘What I mean by his being a blockhead is that he was a barren rascal.’ BOSWELL. ‘Will you not allow, Sir, that he draws very natural pictures of human life?’......more

If a crazed literature professor ever holds a gun to your head and threatens to pull the trigger if you don’t read one of two interminable, gazillion-page satirical British novels (that would be Vanity Fair of the 19th Century or Tom Jones of the 18th Century), I recommend you choose Tom Jones. Tom......more