Tom Jones (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

Henry Fielding (Author), John Bender (Editor, Introduction), Simon Stern (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2008 | Series: Oxford World's Classics

Tom Jones (1749) is rightly regarded as Fielding's greatest work, and one of the first and most influential of English novels. At the center of one of the most ingenious plots in English fiction stands a hero whose actions were, in 1749, as shocking as they are funny today. This carefully modernized edition is based on Fielding's emended fourth edition text and offers the most thorough Notes, Maps, and Bibliography.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`with each volume having an introduction by an acknowledged expert, and exhaustive notes, the World's Classics are surely the most desirable series and, all-round, the best value for money' Oxford Times

`well-produced edition.' Daily Telegraph Arts and Books section, 5 July 1997

About the Author

John Bender is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He is author of Spenser and Literary Pictorialism and Imagining the Penitentiary: Fiction and Architecture of Mind in Eighteenth-Century England, co-editor of The Ends of Rhetoric and Chronotypes: The Construction of Time, and associate editor of The Columbia History of the British Novel. Simon Stern is completing a study of literary property and professional authorship in eighteenth-century England, focusing on Henry and Sarah Fielding.

Product Details

• Paperback: 968 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199536996
• ISBN-13: 978-0199536993
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 1.6 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #79,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly fun read December 19, 2010

By Tim Lieder VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

There are a great deal of very big books that aren't worth the effort. Actually there are a great deal of short books that aren't worth the effort. This book is not only huge, it's also a very slow read. The first few hundred pages alone are a bit of a slog as Fielding feels the need to explain every single attitude and scandal that went into the creation of Tom Jones - adopted son of the rather obviously named Allworthy.

HOwever, the slowness becomes a virtue as you want to live in Fielding's world after a time. Tom Jones is in love with Sophia, the neighboring squire's daughter and since he's the bastard son of a vanished serving girl he doesn't have a chance. So in true double standard, he charms and seduces women throughout the countryside, all the while trying to get with Sophia who is fleeing from an arranged marriage with Jones' adopted cousin.

There is a lot to recommend about this book but one of the most interesting ones is the relative standards of morality. Fielding takes a very modern view of morality in that the priests and the philosophers and the openly virtuous characters are hypocrites and creeps, whereas the randy and seducing Tom Jones is held up as the moral paradigm due to his sweet nature and ability to go out of his way for a friend or comrade. This would prove to be a controversial standard in Fielding's time and one wonders what the Victorians would have made of it, but in this era when we are almost certain that the examplars of morality (be they preachers or radical vegetarians) are actually truly horrible people (Falwell's sermons, Morrissey's animal-rights motivated racism, Catholic priest molesters,etc.) this book is almost too appropriate in speaking to our notions of decency and morality. Even though this book has an Allworthy who is truly an epitome of morality, most of the other moral characters are jerks. The anglican priest is a toady and the philsopher is an atheist moralist with just as much of a hypocritical view of the world (until he's revealed to be sleeping with a minor character and then he gets over himself and stops being such a creep).

All in all, this is a fine slow book that is truly worth the effort and the time. Call it the English equivalent of Don Quixote or the anti-The Da Vinci Code (which is a short book that isn't worth the hour or two it takes to read)

5.0 out of 5 stars A GREAT surprise! December 17, 2012

By V. Castro

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I originally ordered this product because of a class assignment. It made for a dreadful read, but once I began looking beyond the text and analyzing the different subtexts within the novel, I was pleasently surprised. I expecially like all of the hidden mentions of the law within this Tom Jones. Makes for a great research topic and understanding of the law during the 18th century.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Only three stars for Kindle edition because it does not have an active footnote links May 28, 2012

By Christopher

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a fairly wonderfully rendered e-book. Oxford seems to do better than Penguin with its digital versions (the number of misspellings and inoperable footnotes I've encountered with Penguin is surprising). However, there is no encoding for the asterisks here--which is the Oxford version of the footnote. It gets frustrating to come across these, and know there is some note that might help illuminate the passage, but only be able awkwardly get there through the table of contents then to the Notes, then to flip through pages, so that one can then go back.

The book itself is, of course, one of the greatest, funniest, most human novels ever written. Highly recommended.