Tom Jones Fielding Henry (2008)

Fieldings comic masterpiece, first published in 1749, overflows with prudes, whores, libertines, bumpkins, misanthropes, hypocrites, scoundrels, virgins and all-too-fallible humanitarians. At the centre of its ingenious plot stands Tom Jones, a good-hearted foundling whose wild temper and sexual conquests lead to his expulsion from Mr Allworthys country estate. After losing his money, joining the army and pursuing his beloved across Britain to London, Tom becomes a kept lover and confronts the possibility of incest. This carefully modernized edition is based on Fieldings emended fourth-edition text and includes extensive notes, maps and a bibliography. Its introduction uses the latest scholarship to examine how the novel reflects the emerging eighteenth-century public sphere.