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Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding (1707–1754) brought satire, energy, and moral seriousness to the birth of the English novel. Trained as a playwright, he turned to fiction partly to answer Richardson's Pamela, developing a style that mixed picaresque adventure, ironic commentary, and vivid social observation. His great novel Tom Jones follows a foundling through a world of hypocrites and fools, exposing corruption while never losing sympathy for human weakness. Later appointed a London magistrate, Fielding channelled the same reforming impulse into public life. He remains one of the sharpest and most entertaining voices of eighteenth-century literature.

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