Tom Jones is one of the first and finest English comic novels.

Henry Fielding’s high-spirited hero is a foundling of mysterious origins, discovered abandoned one night in the bed of the wealthy and benevolent Mr Allworthy. Tom’s intrigues, amours and picaresque adventures, and how he pursues and wins the lovely and apparently unattainable Sophia Western, are the ingredients of a gloriously elaborate plot.

The novel appeared in 1749 to a mixture of consternation and applause. Fielding’s blithe and racy humour, his insight into sexual ethics and social hypocrisy and his preoccupation with happiness as well as goodness give us, in Tom Jones, anunrivalled entertainment.