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Albert Finney as Tom Jones in Tony Richardson's 1963 film version of the novel by Henry Fielding.
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Albert Finney as Tom Jones in Tony Richardson's 1963 film version of the novel by Henry Fielding.
Albert Finney as Tom Jones in Tony Richardson's 1963 film version of the novel by Henry Fielding.

Tom Jones

novel by Fielding
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Also known as: “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling”
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Tom Jones, comic novel by Henry Fielding, published in 1749.

Tom Jones, like its predecessor, Joseph Andrews, is constructed around a romance plot. Squire Allworthy suspects that the infant whom he adopts and names Tom Jones is the illegitimate child of his servant Jenny Jones. When Tom is a young man, he falls in love with Sophia Western, his beautiful and virtuous neighbour. In the end his true identity is revealed and he wins Sophia’s hand, but numerous obstacles have to be overcome before he achieves this, and in the course of the action the various sets of characters pursue each other from one part of the country to another, giving Fielding an opportunity to paint an incomparably vivid picture of England in the mid-18th century.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.