[henry Fielding]

Henry Fielding is a figure of great significance in English literature and in the history of his own time. A hard-working Justice of the Peace in London, he was involved in establishing England's first police force, the Bow Street Runners, and worked tirelessly to counter social and criminal abuses both on the bench and by writing on legal cases. He was also highly involved in politics, editing three political journals in turn and writing satires and burlesques for the stage which were only cut short by the introduction of theatre censorship. It is, however, Fielding's novels which have preserved his name and reputation. They include between them almost all the range of his personality: classical learning, irreverent wit, desire to expose and counter social abuses, impatience with hypocrisy and pretension, knowledge of the dark undersides of English society and a typically eighteenth-century delight in high living.