The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last

Abstract

The Adventures of David Simple (1744), Sarah Fielding's first and most celebrated novel, went through several editions, the second of which was heavily revised by her brother Henry. This edition includes Henry's ""corrections"" in an appendix. In recounting the guileless hero's search for a true friend, the novel depicts the derision with which almost everyone treats his sentimental attitudes to human nature. Acclaimed as an accurate portrait of mid-eighteenth-century London, The Adventures of David Simple sets forth some provocative feminist ideas. Also included is Fielding's much darker sequel, Volume the Last (1753). David Simple is the most-read work of Sarah Fielding, best known as the sister of novelist Henry Fielding. This attractive new edition by Sabor is the fourth in Kentucky's series of 18th-century women's novels. -- Choice Sabor restores the novel Sarah Fielding really wrote. -- East-Central Intelligencer A welcome addition to eighteenth-century studies. . . . Readers of eighteenth-century fiction will be delighted that Sarah Fielding’s edition has been restored in a volume that is accessible, responsibly edited, and handsomely produced. -- Eighteenth-Century Fiction The revival of interest in Sarah Fielding’s writings over the last decade should be quickened by the publication of this important edition. -- Letters in Canada Sabor's introduction lays out the family tragedies and financial difficulties that perplexed Fielding's career and provides a detailed revisionist account of her impressive literary accomplishments. -- Publishers Weekly This important edition reproduces for the first time since its original publication the first edition of 1744. -- Virginia Quarterly Review Will undoubtedly spur even more work by scholars and students of the early novel. -- Year’s Work in English Studies

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 73 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.