Henry Fielding was an English novelist, irony writer and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel Tom Jones is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders of the traditional English novel. He also holds a place in the history of law enforcement, having used his authority as a magistrate to found the Bow Street Runners, London's first intermittently funded, full-time police force.
Lady Margaret Beaufort was a major figure in the Wars of the Roses of the late fifteenth century, and mother of King Henry VII of England, the first Tudor monarch.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. It is a Bildungsroman and a picaresque novel. It was first published on 28 February 1749 in London and is among the earliest English works to be classified as a novel. It is the earliest novel mentioned by W. Somerset Maugham in his 1948 book Great Novelists and Their Novels among the ten best novels of the world.
John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu,, styled Viscount Monthermer until 1705 and Marquess of Monthermer between 1705 and 1709, was a British peer.
Iullus Antonius was a Roman magnate and poet. A son of Mark Antony and Fulvia, he was spared by the emperor Augustus after the civil wars of the Republic, and was married to the emperor's niece. He was later condemned as one of the lovers of Augustus's daughter, Julia, and committed suicide.
Admiral William Feilding, 1st Earl of Denbigh was an English naval officer and courtier.
Cleopatra Selene II was a Ptolemaic princess and Queen of Numidia and Mauretania. She was an important royal woman in the early Augustan age.
The History of Sir Charles Grandison, commonly called Sir Charles Grandison, is an epistolary novel by English writer Samuel Richardson first published in February 1753. The book was a response to Henry Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, which parodied the morals presented in Richardson's previous novels. The novel follows the story of Harriet Byron who is pursued by Sir Hargrave Pollexfen. After she rejects Pollexfen, he kidnaps her, and she is only freed when Sir Charles Grandison comes to her rescue. After his appearance, the novel focuses on his history and life, and he becomes its central figure.
Anne Seymour Damer, née Conway, was an English sculptor. Once described as a 'female genius' by Horace Walpole, she was trained in sculpture by Giuseppe Ceracchi and John Bacon. Influenced by the Enlightenment movement, Anne was an author, traveller, theatrical producer and actress, as well as an acclaimed sculptress.
Sarah Scott was an English novelist, translator, social reformer, and member of the Bluestockings. Her most famous work was her utopian novel A Description of Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent, followed closely by the sequel The History of Sir George Ellison.
Octavia the Younger was the elder sister of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, the half-sister of Octavia the Elder, and the fourth wife of Mark Antony. She was also the great-grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, maternal grandmother of the Emperor Claudius, and paternal great-grandmother and maternal great-great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero.
Amelia is a sentimental novel written by Henry Fielding and published in December 1751. It was the fourth and final novel written by Fielding, and it was printed in only one edition while the author was alive, although 5,000 copies were published of the first edition. Amelia follows the life of Amelia and Captain William Booth after they are married. It contains many allusions to classical literature and focuses on the theme of marriage and feminine intelligence, but Fielding's stance on gender issues cannot be determined because of the lack of authorial commentary discussing the matter. Although the novel received praise from many writers and critics, it received more criticism from Fielding's competition, possibly resulting from the "paper war" in which the author was involved.
Elizabeth Singer Rowe was an English poet, essayist and fiction writer called "the ornament of her sex and age" and the "Heavenly Singer". She was among 18th-century England's most widely read authors. She wrote mainly religious poetry, but her best-known work, Friendship in Death (1728), is a series of imaginary letters from the dead to the living. Despite a posthumous reputation as a pious, bereaved recluse, Rowe corresponded widely and was involved in local concerns at Frome in her native Somerset. She remained popular into the 19th century on both sides of the Atlantic and in translation. Though little read today, scholars have called her stylistically and thematically radical for her time.
Jane Collier was an English novelist best known for her book An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (1753). She also collaborated with Sarah Fielding on her only other surviving work The Cry (1754).
An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting was a conduct book written by Jane Collier and published in 1753. The Essay was Collier's first work, and operates as a satirical advice book on how to nag. It was modelled after Jonathan Swift's satirical essays, and is intended to "teach" a reader the various methods for "teasing and mortifying" one's acquaintances. It is divided into two sections that are organised for "advice" to specific groups, and it is followed by "General Rules" for all people to follow.
Jane Collier's and Sarah Fielding's The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable (1754) was Fielding's sixth and Collier's second and final work. The work is an allegorical and satirical novel. Collier and Fielding had worked together previously when Fielding wrote The Governess and when Collier wrote An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting, but The Cry is the only work that can be positively ascribed to the two together. Collier died the year after its publication.
Love in Several Masques is a play by Henry Fielding that was first performed on 16 February 1728 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The moderately received play comically depicts three lovers trying to pursue their individual beloveds. The beloveds require their lovers to meet their various demands, which serves as a means for Fielding to introduce his personal feelings on morality and virtue. In addition, Fielding introduces criticism of women and society in general.
The Covent-Garden Journal was an English literary periodical published twice a week for most of 1752. It was edited and almost entirely funded by novelist, playwright, and essayist Henry Fielding, under the pseudonym, "Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain". It was Fielding's fourth and final periodical, and one of his last written works.
Elizabeth Mortimer, Lady Percy and Baroness Camoys, was a medieval English noblewoman, the granddaughter of Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, and great-granddaughter of King Edward III. Her first husband was Sir Henry Percy, known to history as 'Hotspur'. She married secondly Thomas Camoys, 1st Baron Camoys. She is represented as 'Kate, Lady Percy,' in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, and briefly again as 'Widow Percy' in Henry IV, Part 2.
Sarah West (1790–1876) was a British actress.
