The History of Tom Jones

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling is a comic novel by the English writer Henry Fielding, first published in London in February 1749.

It is a picaresque story and a book about upbringing, and Fielding makes the reader's judgement part of the entertainment: Tom is honest but does not think ahead, his rival Blifil is careful and cruel, and the novel keeps showing which of those qualities a society actually rewards. The middle of the book leaves Somerset and turns into a road journey, taking Tom through inns, courts, prisons and the company of soldiers and lawyers, with a narrator who interrupts to discuss what he is doing. Fielding had been a playwright before he became a magistrate and a novelist, and the book carries both habits: it is theatrical about scenes and legalistic about evidence. It sold fast, with four editions in its first year, and it is among the earliest English works to be called a novel; Maugham put it first among the ten novels he discussed in his 1948 book on the form, and later criticism has treated it as Fielding's best work.