Tom Jones is regarded as Fielding’s greatest work, and one of the first and most influential of English novels. One of the great comic novels in the English language, Tom Jones was an instant success when it was published in 1749. 

          A foundling, Tom, is discovered one evening by the benevolent Squire Allworthy and his sister Bridget and brought up as a son in their household until it is time for him to set out in search of both his fortune and his true identity. Amorous, high-spirited, and filled with what Fielding called "the glorious lust of doing good" but with a tendency toward dissolution, Tom Jones is one of the first characters in fiction to display legitimate sides of human virtue and vice. His adventures on the highway of life entangle with a variety of men and women who vividly cover the full spectrum of human nature. 

          The richly textured pattern of “Tom Jones” is one of the marvels of literature, and in its parody and pathos, its wit and constant surprise, the reader views the pure joy of life itself.