Finally, And it's the birthday of the man who once wrote, "Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea," novelist and dramatist Henry Fielding, born to the gentry in Somerset, England, in 1707. He began his career writing for the stage, but often found himself in hot water because his plays were invariably political satires, which the government didn't take kindly to. In 1737, probably in response to Fielding's plays, Parliament passed the Theatrical Licensing Act, which required plays to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain; Fielding, knowing that none of his plays were likely to gain approval, retired from the stage and became a novelist.
He's best known for The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), which recounts the adventures of a lusty but good-hearted young man who falls in love with his neighbor's daughter. On its surface a comic romance, Tom Jones also contains a fair measure of social commentary on the English class system.
Fielding was responsible for the first critical theory of the novel, claiming that the job of a novelist was to draw a conceptual circle in the life of the protagonist, including all the events inside that circle and excluding those outside. Laurence Sterne responded vigorously to this theory in his novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Sterne insisted there was no way to ignore the influences on a protagonist's life without being dishonest as an author. Accordingly, Tristram Shandy contains so many digressions to fill in the relevant details that he does not have room to relate many of the opinions or, really, any of the life of Tristram Shandy. This is the greatest, and funniest, shaggy dog story ever written. The chapter where he creates graphs of the plot as a function of time is priceless.
Fielding was also appointed Chief Magistrate of London in 1750, and with his younger half-brother, John, he founded the Bow Street Runners, London's first professional police force.
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