Tom Jones

the long version

Tom Jones is a great celebration of life, the first novel of its kind and still unrivalled as a classic of comic inventiveness and sheer exuberance. First published in 1749, Henry Fielding's tale of the foundling boy adopted by a rich and kindly benefactor only to be cast out on the verge of manhood is an epic saga that draws closely on the author's own rash and rackety life to pit 'goodness and innocence' against the greed and hypocrisy prevalent at all levels of society in his time. Described