ISBN Tom Jones English

Fielding's comic masterpiece of 1749 was immediately attacked as `A motley history of bastardism fornication and adultery'. Indeed his populous novel overflows with a marvellous assortment of prudes whores libertines bumpkins misanthropes hypocrites scoundrels virgins and all too fallible humanitarians. At the centre of one of the most ingenious plots in English fiction stands a hero whose actions were in 1749 as shocking as they are funny today. Expelled from Mr Allworthy's country estate for his wild temper and sexual conquests the good-hearted foundling Tom Jones loses his money joins the army and pursues his beloved across Britain to London where he becomes a kept lover and confronts the possibility of incest. Tom Jones is rightly regarded as Fielding's greatest work and one of the first and most influential of English novels. This carefully modernized edition is based on Fielding's emended fourth edition text and offers the most thorough notes maps and bibliography. The introduction uses the latest scholarship to examine how Tom Jones exemplifies the role of the novel in the emerging eighteenth-century public sphere. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features including expert introductions by leading authorities helpful notes to clarify the text up-to-date bibliographies for further study and much more.