English novelist Henry Fielding.

Henry Fielding

(1707 - 1754)

When his allowance dried up in 1727, Henry Fielding in his early twenties was faced with “no choice but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman.” He wrote some twenty-five plays, one ridiculing the prime minister so wickedly that it prompted the Licensing Act of 1737 and ended Fielding’s career in the theater. He became a justice of the peace in 1748, publishing The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, a masterwork of English literature, one year later. Tireless in the war against crime, he helped to lower the city’s murder and theft rates.

All Writing

The slander of some people is as great a recommendation as the praise of others.

—Henry Fielding, 1730

Voices In Time

1732 | London

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A mark worth ten thousand pounds. More

Voices In Time

1749 | London

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Henry Fielding presents a bill of fare to a literary feast.More

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