Tom Jones Summary
Henry Fielding

Everything you need to understand or teach Tom Jones by Henry Fielding.

Tom Jones Summary & Study Guide
1 Encyclopedia Article
2 Literature Criticisms
...and more

Tom Jones Summary

Tom Jones, Henry Fielding's third novel, was first published in England in 1749 and was an immediate best-seller. It is a comedy in both senses of the formal definition: it is amusing and all ends well.

Originally entitled The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, the book tells the story of the title character from infancy through his marriage to the beautiful and virtuous Sophia Western, the pursuit of whom takes up much of...

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Study Pack

The Tom Jones Study Pack contains:

Tom Jones Study Guide

Introduction

Author Biography

Plot Summary

Characters

Themes

Style

Criticism

Adaptations

Topics for Further Study

Encyclopedia Articles (1)

The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling

5,270 words, approx. 18 pages

The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling by Henry Fielding Henry Fielding was born in 1707 into a family with aristocratic connections. His father, Edmund, had ancestors who were earls, and his mother... Read more

Henry Fielding Biographies (5)

Henry Fielding

1,239 words, approx. 5 pages

The English author and magistrate Henry Fielding (1707-1754) was one of the great novelists of the 18th century. His fiction, plays, essays, and legal pamphlets show he was a humane and witty man, wit... Read more

Henry Fielding

17,032 words, approx. 57 pages

There are many ways, many forms, in which novelists attempt to give their readers what Henry Fielding in Tom Jones (1749) refers to as "a Representation, or, as Aristotle calls it, an Imitation of wh... Read more

Henry Fielding

12,997 words, approx. 44 pages

Although we usually think of Henry Fielding as a novelist, he was a prolific and innovative playwright who published twenty-one plays before his first novel, Joseph Andrews (1742). His plays capture t... Read more

Henry Fielding

8,244 words, approx. 28 pages

Many critics, Martin C. Battestin and C. J. Rawson perhaps most prominent among them, have described Henry Fielding both as the last and one of the greatest representatives of the Augustan Age in Engl... Read more

Henry Fielding

18,966 words, approx. 64 pages

Biography EssayThere are many ways, many forms, in which novelists attempt to give their readers what Henry Fielding in Tom Jones (1749) refers to as "a Representation, or, as Aristotle calls it, an ... Read more