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Ratings: ★★★★★ (4.8/5)
Genre: Classic Literature / Comic Fiction / Picaresque Novel / Satire

Book Review:
Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749) is widely regarded as one of the first and most influential English novels — and certainly the funniest. The hero, Tom, is a generous but reckless country boy with a weakness for young women. After being banished from his benefactor’s home, he travels to London, encountering thieves, rogues, adventurers, and hypocrites along the way. Despite his flaws, Tom’s essential good-heartedness carries him through. Fielding called this a “comic, epic poem in prose,” and its biting social satire remains remarkably relevant. As Doris Lessing noted, “This country becomes every day more like the eighteenth century, full of thieves and adventurers.” This Wordsworth Classics edition features a cover illustration of Hogarth’s “The Wedding Scene.”