For almost the first time in Mr Battestin's book religion has its full innings in the reinterpretation of eighteenth-century literature ... Perhaps his greatest contribution is his recovery of a number of divines and their writings and his employment of them as an intellectual rather than a merely antiquarian resource"" - Paul Fussell,

Best remembered as the author of "Joseph Andrews" (1742), "Tom Jones" (1749) and "Amelia" (1751), Henry Fielding was one of the most important pioneering English novelists of the eighteenth century, and his works continue to occupy a central place in the literary canon. During the 1730s he was the most dominant playwright in London since John Dryden; and in his official capacity as a magistrate, he addressed serious social problems and invented the modern metropolitan police. This reference book makes essential information available to readers interested in Fielding, his life, and his works.

The volume is organized in sections devoted to such topics as Fielding's residences; his family members and household; historical persons, including authors who influenced him; his works; themes and topics important to his writings; and characters in his plays and prose fiction. Each section contains numerous entries on particular items, and many entries provide brief bibliographical information. While the sectional organization of the volume invites the reader to explore broad areas of interest, a thorough index provides convenient alphabetical access to the entries. A brief introductory essay and chronology begin the volume, and the book concludes with an extensive bibliography.

First published in 1989, Henry Fielding is a biography presenting a fresh interpretation of Fielding's life and thought. Using newly discovered information, including new facts, three hitherto unknown pictures of Fielding drawn from life, documents, manuscripts, and many crucially important and engrossing new letters, Martin C. Battestin - the foremost Fielding scholar - illuminates every aspect of Fielding's life and work. Fielding and the life he led - in the West Country, at Eton, at the University of Leyden, and in the theatres and brothels, sponging houses and police courts of London - make for fascinating reading. This authoritative and timely biography will appeal to all those interested in the society and literature of eighteenth-century England.

This book completes the authoritative Wesleyan Edition of Fielding's nondramatic writings. It features two of Fielding's classic works: The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon written as he sailed to Portugal hoping, in vain, to recover his health; and Shamela, the hilarious parody of Richardson's Pamela that led to Joseph Andrews and the beginning of his career as novelist. The volume also includes every other work of Fielding's not to be found in the twelve previous volumes of the nondramatic writings. Here the reader will find in section I, Occasional Verse: "The Masquerade"; the unfinished "Cantos"; a burlesque of Pope's "Dunciad"; "Plain Truth"; "A Dialogue between a Beau's Head and his Heels"; "An Epistle to Mr. Lyttleton"; as well as three epilogues and a prologue. In section II, Occasional Prose: "A Full Vindication of the Dutchess Dowager of Marlborough"; the translation of Aristophanes' "Plutus, the God of Riches"; Preface to Sarah Fielding's Adventures of David Simple; "The Female Husband"; "Ovid's Art of Love Paraphrased"; Preface and letters xl-xliv of Sarah Fielding's Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple; and "A Fragment of a Comment on L. Bolingbroke's Essays." The appendicies include writings recently attributed to Fielding, supplementary material relating to the voyage to Lisbon, and the full the textual apparatus.

Important discoveries in private and public archives have recently brought to light many new letters by Henry Fielding (1707-54) and by his sister, the novelist and classicist Sarah Fielding (1710-68). Published here for the first time is their entire extant correspondence, edited with an Introduction and explanatory annotations - 77 letters from and to Henry Fielding written over the years 1727 to 1754, and 33 letters from and to Sarah Fielding written from 1749 to 1767. The collection illuminates Henry Fielding's activities as author, lawyer, and magistrate; and it is valuable as well for the light it throws on his character and personal relationships. Fielding scholars are already acquainted with the important letters to his cousin Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, to his rival Samuel Richardson, to his friend George Lyttelton, and to his famous half-brother John Fielding, the latter written on the sad occasion of his final voyage to Lisbon. In this volume they will also find Fielding's correspondence with his great patron, the Duke of Bedford, and his agents - letters relating to Fielding's stewardship of the New Forest and to his appointments to the magistracy. The heart of this present collection, however - Fielding's correspondence with his closest friend, James `Hermes' Harris - is completely new. Never before published, the Harris letters comprise the finest extant examples of Fielding's epistolary correspondence, a kind of familiar writing he practised reluctantly, but well. The Harris papers are equally valuable for what they reveal of Sarah Fielding's literary and scholarly interests and her relationship with her brother. Other letters in the collection - several also published here for the first time - will serve to clarify her friendships with Richardson, Garrick, and Elizabeth Montagu. Included in the Appendix are a half-dozen letters from members of the family that will be of interest to biographers of Henry and Sarah.

A scholarly edition of a work by Henry Fielding. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus

A scholarly edition of a work by Henry Fielding. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

This authoritative textual edition presents Tobias Smollett's translation of Cervantes's Don Quixote in the form most faithful to Smollett's own intentions. It includes Francis Hayman's twenty-eight illustrations engraved for the original edition, Smollett's explanatory notes, and his prefatory "Life of Cervantes."

Smollett's Don Quixote first appeared in 1755 and was for many years the most popular English-language version of Cervantes's masterpiece. However, soon after the start of the nineteenth century, its reputation began to suffer. Rival translators, literary hucksters, and careless scholars initiated or fed a variety of charges against Smollett -- even plagiarism. For almost 130 years no publisher risked reprinting it.

Redemption began in 1986, when the distinguished Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, in his foreword to a new (albeit flawed) edition of Smollett's translation, declared it to be "the authentic vernacular version" of Don Quixote in English. Fuentes's opinion was in accord with that of the preeminent Cervantist, Francisco Rodriguez Marin, who decades earlier had declared Smollett's Don Quixote to be his preferred English version.

Martin C. Battestin's introduction discusses the composition, publication, and controversial reception of Smollett's Don Quixote. Battestin's notes identify Smollett's sources in his "Life of Cervantes" and in his commentary, provide cross-references to his other works, and illustrate Smollett's originality or dependence on previous translations. Also included is a complete textual apparatus, a glossary of unfamiliar terms, and an appendix comparing a selection of Francis Hayman's original illustrations with the engraved renderings usedin the book.

This authoritative textual edition presents Tobias Smollett's translation of Cervantes's "Don Quixote" in the form most faithful to Smollett's own intentions. It includes Francis Hayman's twenty-eight illustrations engraved for the original edition, Smollett's explanatory notes, and his prefatory "Life of Cervantes."

Smollett's Don Quixote first appeared in 1755 and was for many years the most popular English-language version of Cervantes's masterpiece. However, soon after the start of the nineteenth century, its reputation began to suffer. Rival translators, literary hucksters, and careless scholars initiated or fed a variety of charges against Smollett--even plagiarism. For almost 130 years no publisher risked reprinting it.

Redemption began in 1986, when the distinguished Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, in his foreword to a new (albeit flawed) edition of Smollett's translation, declared it to be "the authentic vernacular version" of Don Quixote in English. Fuentes's opinion was in accord with that of the preeminent Cervantist, Francisco Rodriguez Marin, who decades earlier had declared Smollett's Don Quixote to be his preferred English version.

Martin C. Battestin's introduction discusses the composition, publication, and controversial reception of Smollett's "Don Quixote." Battestin's notes identify Smollett's sources in his "Life of Cervantes" and in his commentary, provide cross-references to his other works, and illustrate Smollett's originality or dependence on previous translations. Also included is a complete textual apparatus, a glossary of unfamiliar terms, and an appendix comparing a selection of Francis Hayman's original illustrations with the engraved renderings used in the book.

For almost the first time in Mr Battestin's book religion has its full innings in the reinterpretation of eighteenth-century literature ... Perhaps his greatest contribution is his recovery of a number of divines and their writings and his employment of them as an intellectual rather than a merely antiquarian resource"" - Paul Fussell,

Contents Include: Book 1: Of writing Lives in General, and Particularly of Pamela - Of Mr. Joseph Andrews, His Birth, Parentage, Education and Great Endowments - Of Mr. Abraham Adams the Curate, Mrs. Slipslop the Chambermaid and Others - What Happened after their Journey to London - The Death of Sir Thomas Booby - How Joseph Andrews writ a Letter to His Sister Pamela - A Dialogue Between the Lady and her Maid - The Interview Between the Lady and Joseph - What Passed Between the Lady and Mrs Slipslop - Joseph Writes another letter - Of Several New matters not Expected - Containing many Surprising Adventures - What happened to Joseph During his Sickness at the Inn - Being Very Full of Adventures which Succeeded each Other at the Inn - Showing how Mrs. Tow-Wouse was a Little Mollified - The Escape of the Thief, Mr. Adam's Disappointment - A Pleasant Discourse between the two Parsons and the Bookseller - The History of Betty the Chambermaid and an Account of what Occasioned the Violent Scene in the Preceding Chapter - Book II: Of Divisions in Authors - A Surprising Instance of Mr. Adam's Short memory - The Opinion of Two Lawyers Concerning the Same Gentleman - The History of Leonora, or the Unfortunate Jilt - A Dreadful Quarrel which Happened at the Inn - Conclusion of the Unfortunate Jilt - A Very Short Chapter in which Parson Adams went a Great Way - A Notable Dissertation by Mr. Abraham Adams - In Which the Gentleman Discants on Bravery - Giving an Account of the Strange Catastrophe preceding - What happened to them While Before the Justice - A Very Delightful Adventure - A Dissertation Concerning High People and Low People - An Interview Between Parson Adams and Parson Trulliber - AnAdventure, the Consequence of a new Instance which parson Adams gave of his Forgetfulness - In Which Mr. Adams gave a much Greater Instance of the Honest simplicity of his Heart, than of his Experience in the Ways of this World - A Dialogue Between Mr. Abraham Adams and his Host - Book III: Matter Prefatory in Praise of Biography - A Night Scene, Wherein Several Wonderful Adventures Befel Adams and his Fellow-Travellers - In Which the Gentleman Realtes the History of his Life - A Description of Mr. Wilson's Way of Living. The Tragical Adventure of the Dod and other Grave Matters - A Disputation on Schools held on the Road - Moral Reflections by Joseph Andrews - A Scene of Rosting, very Nicely Adapted to the Present taste and Times - Which some Readers will think too Short and others too Long - Containing as Surprising and Bloody Adventures as can Be found in this or Perhaps any other Authentic History - A Discourse Between the Poet and the Player - The Exhortations of Parson Adams to his Friend in Affliction - More Adventures which we Hope will Please the reader - A Dialogue Between Mr. Abraham Adams and Mr. Peter Pounce - Book IV: The Arrival of Lady Booby and the rest at Booby-Hall - A Dialogue Between Mr. Abraham Adams and the Lady Booby - What Passed Between the Lady and Lawyer Scout - The Arrival of Mr. Booby and his Lady - Containing Justice Business - Of Which you are Desired to Read no More than you Like - Philosophical Reflections - A Discourse between Mr. Adams, Mrs. Adams, Joseph and Fanny - A Visit which the Polite Lady Booby and Her Polite Friend Paid to the Parson - The History of the Two friends - In Which the History is Continued - Where the Good-Natured Reader will seeSomething which will Give him No Great Pleasure - The History Returns to the Lady Booby - Containing Several Curious Night-Adventures - The Arrival of Gaffar and Gammar Andrews - Being the last, in Which this True History is Brought to a happy Conclusion