When Tom Jones was first released in 1749, it was attacked as "A motley history of bastardism, fornication, and adultery." Whetted your appetite yet? Come on a bawdy romp through Georgian England as Tom Jones, his family, friends and the love of his life, Sophia Weston, race through the countryside, seducing and being seduced.
Reckless, good-hearted, bed-hopping Tom falls in love with the beautiful Sophia, but he has a long road to travel before he finds happiness, a road that includes beds, swashbuckling, highwaymen, gentlemen, poets and thieves.
Tom and Sophia careen through a countryside peopled with characters you'll never forget, who try hard to deter the couple from achieving their happy ending. From the life of a wealthy squire to the very foot of the gallows at Tyburn tree, Tom never fails to captivate and enchant with his boundless enthusiasm for life and love for his Sophia. Sophia is a lively heroine, worthy of her Tom, who gets into her share of adventures before she finds the man she loves.
The eighteenth century comes to vibrant life, and with the scenes indicated but not detailed by Fielding put back in, it bursts with vitality.
The dictionary writer Samuel Johnson said, "I am shocked to hear you quote from so vicious a book. I am sorry to hear you have read it: a confession which no modest lady should ever make." Johnson also said that women should be whipped regularly. He really didn't understand women, did he?
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