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On this day in 1749 Samuel Richardson expressed this opinion of Henry Fielding's new, very popular, and "truly coarse-titled" The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:
I was told that it was a rambling collection of Waking Dreams, in which Probability was not observed: And that it had a very bad Tendency. And I had Reason to think that the Author intended for his Second View (His first, to fill his Pocket, by accommodating it to the reigning Taste) in writing it, to whiten a vicious Character, and to make morality bend to his Practices. What Reason had he to make his Tom illegitimate, in an Age when Keeping is become a Fashion? Why did he make him a common -- What shall I call it? And a Kept Fellow, the Lowest of all Fellows, yet in Love With a Young Creature who was traipsing after him, a Fugitive from her Father's House? -- Why did he draw his Heroine so fond, so foolish, and so insipid? -- Indeed he has one Excuse -- he knows not how to draw a delicate Woman -- he has not been accustomed to such Company -- And is too prescribing, too impetuous, too immoral, I will venture to say, to take any other Byass than that a perverse and crooked Nature has given him; or Evil Habits, at least, have confirm'd in him ... FULL STORY »
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The TinL masthead features photography by
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