Complete and unabridged with introduction and notes

Like most of Henry Fielding’s writing, the novel is both comedic and satirical. What particularly distinguishes Tom Jones is its adaptation of the conventions of the picaresque, a genre whose early modern origins are usually traced back to Spanish works such as Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), in which a series of interconnected episodes and a parade of different social types reveal the foibles and hypocrisies of society. Fielding was admired for his intricate plots and his knowing, satiric narrators, but in Tom Jones he also scandalised some readers with the moral elasticity of his memorable main character.