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Henry Fielding (April 22, 1707 – October 8, 1754) 
was an English novelist and dramatist, best known 
as author of the novel Tom Jones.

Born near Glastonbury in Somerset in 1707, Fielding 
was educated at Eton College. His younger sister, 
Sarah, was also destined to be a successful writer. 
After a romantic episode with a young woman which 
ended in his getting into trouble with the law, 
he went to London where his literary career began.

In 1728, he travelled to Leiden to study. On his 
return, he began writing for the theatre, some of 
his work being savagely critical of the contemporary 
government under Sir Robert Walpole. The Theatrical 
Licensing Act of 1737 is alleged to be a direct 
result of his activities. The particular play 
that triggered the Licensing Act was The Vision of 
the Golden Rump, but Fielding's satires had set 
the tone. When the licensing act passed, political 
satire on the stage was virtually impossible, and 
playwrights whose works were staged were viewed as 
suspect. Fielding therefore retired from the theatre 
and resumed his career in law, becoming a Justice 
of the peace in 1748 for Middlesex and Westminster.

Fielding never stopped writing political satire 
and satires of current arts and letters. His 
Tragedy of Tragedies of Tom Thumb was, for example, 
quite successful as a printed play. He also 
contributed a number of works to journals of the 
day. He wrote for Tory periodicals, usually under 
the name of "Captain Hercules Vinegar." As Justice 
of the Peace, and not as an author, he issued a 
warrant for the arrest of Colley Cibber for "murder 
of the English language."

In 1743, his first novel appeared in the 
Miscellanies volume III (which was the first volume 
of the Miscellanies). This was The History of the 
Life of the Late Mr Jonathan Wild the Great. It is 
a satire of Walpole that draws a parallel between 
Walpole and Jonathan Wild, the infamous gang leader 
and highwayman. He implicitly compares the Whig 
party in Parliament with a gang of thieves, being 
run by Walpole, whose constant desire to be a "Great 
Man" (a common epithet for Walpole) should culminate 
only in the apotheosis of greatness: being hung. 
Fielding's first major success in a novel was 
Shamela, an anonymous parody of Samuel Richardson's 
melodramatic novel, Pamela. Like Jonathan Wild, it 
is a satire that follows the model of the famous 
Tory satirists of the previous generation (Jonathan 
Swift and John Gay, in particular). He followed this 
up with Joseph Andrews (1742), an original work 
supposedly dealing with Pamela's brother, Joseph. 
This parody, however, far outstripped Richardson's 
original in popularity.

His greatest work was Tom Jones (1749), a meticulously 
constructed picaresque novel telling the convoluted 
and hilarious tale of how a foundling came into a 
fortune.

His first wife, Charlotte, on whom he later modeled 
the heroines of both Tom Jones and Amelia, died in 
1744. Three years later Fielding married her former 
maid, Mary, disregarding public opinion. Despite this, 
he became London's Chief Magistrate and his literary 
career went from strength to strength. Joined by his 
younger half-brother John, he helped found London's 
first police force, the Bow Street Runners in 1750. 
However, his health had deteriorated to such an 
extent that he went abroad in 1753 in search of a 
cure. He died in Lisbon in 1754. Despite being blind, 
John Fielding succeeded him as Chief Magistrate.

Works
(incomplete list)

Love in Several Masques (Play, 1728) 
Rape upon Rape (Play, 1730). Adapted by Bernard Miles 
as Lock Up Your Daughters! in 1959, filmed in 1974 
The Temple Beau (Play, 1730) 
The Author's Farce (Play, 1730) 
The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of 
Tom Thumb (Play, 1731) 
Grub-Street Opera (Play, 1731) 
The Modern Husband (Play, 1732) 
Pasquin (Play, 1736) 
The Historical Register for the Year 1736 (Play, 1737) 
An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews 
(Novel, 1741) 
The Life of Jonathan Wild the Great (Novel, 1743), 
ironic treatment of the most notorious underworld 
figure of the time. 
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (Novel, 1749) 
Amelia (1751) 
Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1755)