The Real History of Tom Jones

231 Pages·2005·1.194 MB·English

by  John Allen Stevenson

The Real History of Tom Jones
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The Real History of
Tom Jones
John Allen Stevenson
THEREALHISTORYOFTOMJONES
© John Allen Stevenson,2005.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-6643-8
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2005 by
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ISBN 978-0-230-60249-6 ISBN 978-1-4039-8172-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781403981721
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stevenson,John Allen.
The real history of Tom Jones / John Allen Stevenson.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Fielding,Henry,1707–1754.History of Tom Jones.2.Identity
(Psychology) in literature.3.Foundlings in literature.I.Title.
PR3454.H7S75 2005
823(cid:1).5—dc22 2004053371
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India.
First edition:February 2005
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for Jilli
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Missing Pictures 1
1. Stuart Ghosts 17
2. Savage Matters 47
3. Black Acts 77
4. Hanging Judges 103
5. Gypsy Kings 125
6. Mirror Plots 159
Afterword: Sleepless Nights 181
Notes 187
Index 219
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Acknowledgments
I have accumulated considerable intellectual indebtedness in writing this
book, and I am not at all sure that the act of acknowledging those debts
will repay or even consolidate them, as I would like. Still, it is a pleasure
to recollect the generosity of others, gifts of time and learning that have
made this a better work than would otherwise have been possible.
Versions of much of this study were first presented at various meet-
ings of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and I am
grateful to those audiences for their attentive and helpful responses.
Earlier and (as I now see) incomplete versions of chapters 1, 3, and 6
appeared as essays in, respectively, ELH, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, and
SEL; that material is reprinted here with the permission of these jour-
nals, all of whose editorial suggestions and interventions improved my
thinking about the ideas I discuss here. I have turned, time and again,
to that electronic trove of collective wisdom known as the Eighteenth-
Century Interdisciplinary Discussion Group, so ably moderated by
Kevin Berland. The C18-L is a rare resource, with an unsurpassed capac-
ity to provide information that is both rapid and reliable.
Colleagues in the field have helped in innumerable ways, and I hope
that the list that follows is complete: Marshall Brown, Alison Conway,
Simon Dickie, Frans DeBruyn, Robert Folkenflick, Timothy Erwin,
Gary Gautier, Thomas Krise, Thomas Lockwood, Roger Lund, Albert J.
Rivero, Jim Rosenheim, Laura Rosenthal, John Sitter, Simon Stern, and
Howard Weinbrot. Closer to home, colleagues here at the University of
Colorado, Boulder have read portions of this study or provided crucial
information: Fred Anderson, Katherine Eggert, Peter Knox, Warren
Motte, and Will West, as well as a number of scholars now resident else-
where: Margaret Ferguson, Richard Halpern, and David Simpson. For
help with some questions of law, I want to thank Sue Chetlin and
Michael Heydt. I was fortunate to be a Faculty Fellow in the University
of Colorado, Boulder’s Center for Humanities and the Arts in 2000–1,
and this study benefitted substantially from that happy and stimulating