1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910970551003321

Autore

Stevenson John Allen

Titolo

The Real History of Tom Jones / / by J. Stevenson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Palgrave Macmillan US : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2005

ISBN

9786611365271

9781281365279

1281365270

9781403981721

1403981728

Edizione

[1st ed. 2005.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (236 p.)

Disciplina

823.5

823/.5

Soggetti

European literature

Literature, Modern - 18th century

European literature - Renaissance, 1450-1600

Fiction

European Literature

Eighteenth-Century Literature

Early Modern and Renaissance Literature

Fiction Literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Missing Pictures -- Stuart Ghosts -- Savage Matters -- Black Acts -- Hanging Judges -- Gypsy Kings -- Mirror Plots -- Afterword: Sleepless Nights.

Sommario/riassunto

The Real History of Tom Jones revivifies historical materials from which Henry Fielding constructed the greatest comic novel of the eighteenth century. This study recovers and explores the contexts necessary to understand Fielding's subtle art, such as the bloody conflict for the throne between Stuarts and Hanoverians, a contradictory class system, game laws that both protected and flouted individual property rights, and a justice system that proclaimed hanging for many crimes but let



most criminals go. Drawing on evidence such as the peculiar appearance of eighteenth-century money, the fraudulent autobiography of a gypsy king, and a magical prayer book illustration, the book offers new readings of both Tom Jones and the political and legal landscape of Georgian England.