Amelia

Henry Fielding

• Publisher: Heritage Books
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780599390881
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Colecciones literarias europeas

After attending Eton, Fielding courted a young heiress, Miss Sarah Andrew of Lyme Regis, but failed to persuade her to elope with him. In 1727, his family lost much of their money through the dishonesty of a broker, and the young Fielding found himself in need of an income. Drama was the most lucrative genre of the time, and Fielding took advantage of his London connections, particularly Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, to gain an introduction to theater circles there. His first play, Love in Several Masques, was produced in 1728 at the Drury Lane Theater and published the same year. Despite this promising beginning, however, less than a month later Fielding enrolled at Leyden University, where he was entered in the faculty of letters. After only two years he returned to London, perhaps as a result of financial difficulties. Fielding's second play, The Temple Beau, (1730) was followed rapidly by three further plays, among them The Author's Farce, and the Pleasures of the Town and Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great. His farces were a great success, and his first season launched him on a prosperous career in the theater. Fielding wrote 25 plays in the eight years after his return to London, but for the most part these works have little literary merit. He did, however, adapt two works of Molière's to the English stage to great acclaim, The Mock-Doctor, or The Dumb Lady Cured and The Miser (1733).

Table of contents

• (Untitled)
• Introduction