Jonathan Wild
by Henry Fielding
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One of the masters of literary satire and humor writing, Henry Fielding takes on true crime in this novel, offering readers a wild ride as tumultuous and twisted as the book's original tongue-twister of a title: The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great. This exaggerated but mostly true account details the life of criminal mastermind Jonathan Wild, a top English policemen who also ran a notorious nationwide network of thieves in the early eighteenth century..
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rebeccanyc Jack Sheppard presents a different view of Jonathan Wild, and is a much more delightfully fun read, whereas Jonathan Wild is more satirical and, for me, less fun. As I said in my review, Wild is a much more enjoyable villain in Jack Sheppard.
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Not the greatest of 18th century novels by a long shot, but it's a quick, entertaining read.
Fielding obviously made good use of his legal experience in putting together this satirical crime story, very loosely based on the life of a real London fence of the 1720s. The whole thing is set up as a spoof of the "inspirational lives of great men" idea, with Fielding putting forward a mock-serious argument that "GREAT" criminals are actually better models for us to imitate than politicians or generals. We are supposed to spot the parallels between Wild's career and Robert Walpole's, something that probably won't be at the forefront of most modern readers' minds. It doesn't really matter: the joke would work just as well if you filled in show more Bush, Blair, or Berlusconi. Crime may change with the centuries, but politics is still the same as ever... show less
Fielding obviously made good use of his legal experience in putting together this satirical crime story, very loosely based on the life of a real London fence of the 1720s. The whole thing is set up as a spoof of the "inspirational lives of great men" idea, with Fielding putting forward a mock-serious argument that "GREAT" criminals are actually better models for us to imitate than politicians or generals. We are supposed to spot the parallels between Wild's career and Robert Walpole's, something that probably won't be at the forefront of most modern readers' minds. It doesn't really matter: the joke would work just as well if you filled in show more Bush, Blair, or Berlusconi. Crime may change with the centuries, but politics is still the same as ever... show less
A wickedly funny satire, with lots of excellent threads to be pulled apart and explored. Fielding's experimentation with fictional forms, as well as his expert wit and deep knowledge of the political and legal cultures this book skewers, make it well worth a read. The appended biographical sketch of the real-life Jonathan Wild is a good complement to the piece, as is the preface to the volume of Fielding's works in which is was originally published.
First published in 1743 as a literary conceit that made use of the scandal surrounding the notorious gangster and thief-taker Jonathan Wild, this edition has an excellent introduction (1982) by David Nokes and includes Daniel Defoe's profiteering pamphlet of 1725 as well as other information.
There is not too much to say here. Fielding, a radical Tory magistrate and humanitarian as well as novelist, uses the story of Wild primarily to satirise the corrupt administration of Robert Walpole and posturing notions of GREATNESS in public life.
It is an achievement to have written a text that, at times, can still raise a smile over 250 years after it was published although, equally, it is a literary concoction that is best appreciated by those show more with a taste for the classical allusions and sentimental tropes of the era.
Fielding tells us more about himself than about the real Wild. The author is a type we all know even today in English society: the middle class observer outraged by the hypocrisy, delusions and self-seeking behaviour of the age, indeed, trying not to be outraged by humanity itself.
This is a barely repressed rage that men do not behave as they should according to the lights of religion and decency and, of course, we can reflect that books rarely change manners except amongst those minded to change their manners.
The best that might be said here is that Fielding's outraged cynicism albeit hiding the exact opposite - the belief and hope in a better world - was part of the slow process by which the eighteenth century introduced humanist and even egalitarian values to the wider world.
The language of the eighteenth century is much easier to read than that of the preceding centuries as you would expect but casual readers should be warned that the formal style needs some concentration at times. The notes are excellent. show less
There is not too much to say here. Fielding, a radical Tory magistrate and humanitarian as well as novelist, uses the story of Wild primarily to satirise the corrupt administration of Robert Walpole and posturing notions of GREATNESS in public life.
It is an achievement to have written a text that, at times, can still raise a smile over 250 years after it was published although, equally, it is a literary concoction that is best appreciated by those show more with a taste for the classical allusions and sentimental tropes of the era.
Fielding tells us more about himself than about the real Wild. The author is a type we all know even today in English society: the middle class observer outraged by the hypocrisy, delusions and self-seeking behaviour of the age, indeed, trying not to be outraged by humanity itself.
This is a barely repressed rage that men do not behave as they should according to the lights of religion and decency and, of course, we can reflect that books rarely change manners except amongst those minded to change their manners.
The best that might be said here is that Fielding's outraged cynicism albeit hiding the exact opposite - the belief and hope in a better world - was part of the slow process by which the eighteenth century introduced humanist and even egalitarian values to the wider world.
The language of the eighteenth century is much easier to read than that of the preceding centuries as you would expect but casual readers should be warned that the formal style needs some concentration at times. The notes are excellent. show less
Satire this funny is a lost art. Maybe it's just that I'm particularly irritated by contemporary great-man worship (see especially: presidential biographies, founding-father blather, Darwinismism), but this was a nice breath of fresh air. Why don't more novelists these days write about the world instead of writing memoirs about their navel-fluff? I do not know.
I was eager to read this book after reading the delightful Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth, in which Jonathan Wild, a historical figure, is featured as the villain of the tale, both because I looked forward to learning more about Wild and because this is an example of a very early novel. Alas, although I enjoyed reading it, I was also disappointed for several reasons.
The novel is a satire, in which Wild is considered "great" because he focuses single-mindedly on his own advancement and benefits, without indulging in the "good" "weaknesses" of compassion, honesty, fairness, or consideration of others. Indeed, Wild, along with his mentors and protegees is a sterling example of a "great" man as he regularly steals, incites show more others to steal, lies, and deceives all around him. One theory is that Fielding was actually satirizing several people high in the British government at the time.
Fielding more or less keeps the plot moving along, with many asides to the reader (an early novel version of metafiction?), although there is a digression or two. My problem is that based on what I learned about Wild from Jack Sheppard and, in fact, on what is historically known about him, this novel takes Wild on a different path, in that he is a thief, but not the notorious "thief-taker" of London, who captured thieves and others and turned them in to the authorities. (Fielding apparently knew he was taking only one aspect of Wild for his satire, and the Oxford World Classic edition I read includes a contemporary biographical sketch of Wild.) Wild is a much more enjoyable villain in Jack Sheppard.
My other problem with the book was that while the satire is witty and fun, it wears thin after a while. It also took me a while to get used to 18th century spelling conventions, in which nouns seem to be capitalized, although I realized that after a while I stopped noticing this. I did find it interesting to read so early a novel, when the approach and style we are used to from, say, 19th century novelists were not in place. I also appreciated the extensive notes which helped explain classical and other references. show less
The novel is a satire, in which Wild is considered "great" because he focuses single-mindedly on his own advancement and benefits, without indulging in the "good" "weaknesses" of compassion, honesty, fairness, or consideration of others. Indeed, Wild, along with his mentors and protegees is a sterling example of a "great" man as he regularly steals, incites show more others to steal, lies, and deceives all around him. One theory is that Fielding was actually satirizing several people high in the British government at the time.
Fielding more or less keeps the plot moving along, with many asides to the reader (an early novel version of metafiction?), although there is a digression or two. My problem is that based on what I learned about Wild from Jack Sheppard and, in fact, on what is historically known about him, this novel takes Wild on a different path, in that he is a thief, but not the notorious "thief-taker" of London, who captured thieves and others and turned them in to the authorities. (Fielding apparently knew he was taking only one aspect of Wild for his satire, and the Oxford World Classic edition I read includes a contemporary biographical sketch of Wild.) Wild is a much more enjoyable villain in Jack Sheppard.
My other problem with the book was that while the satire is witty and fun, it wears thin after a while. It also took me a while to get used to 18th century spelling conventions, in which nouns seem to be capitalized, although I realized that after a while I stopped noticing this. I did find it interesting to read so early a novel, when the approach and style we are used to from, say, 19th century novelists were not in place. I also appreciated the extensive notes which helped explain classical and other references. show less
Amazon Book Description: The real-life Jonathan Wild, gangland godfather and self-styled "Thieftaker General", controlled much of the London underworld until he was executed for his crimes in 1725. Even during his lifetime his achievements attracted attention; after his death balladeers sang of his exploits, and satirists made connections between his success and the triumph of corruption in high places. Fielding built on these narratives to produce one of the greatest sustained satires in the English language. Published in 1743, at a time when the modern novel had yet to establish itself as a fixed literary form, Jonathan Wild is at the same time a brilliant black comedy, an incisive political satire, and a profoundly serious show more exploration of human "greatness" and "goodness", as relevant today as it ever was. show less
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Jonathan Wild is a paradox sustained with, perhaps the strain, but above all, with the decisiveness, flexibility and exhilaration of a scorching trumpet call which does not falter for one moment and even dares very decorative and difficult variations on the way to its assured conclusion.
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Author Information
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Henry Fielding, 1707 - 1754 A succcessful playwright in his twenties, Henry Fielding turned to the study of law and then to journalism, fiction, and a judgeship after his Historical Register, a political satire on the Walpole government, contributed to the censorship of plays that put him out of business. As an impoverished member of the upper show more classes, he knew the country squires and the town nobility; as a successful young playwright, the London jet set; as a judge at the center of London, the city's thieves, swindlers, petty officials, shopkeepers, and vagabonds. As a political journalist (editor-author of The Champion, 1739-1741; The True Patriot, 1745-1746; The Jacobite's Journal, 1747-1748; The Covent-Garden Journal, 1752), he participated in argument and intrigue over everything from London elections to national policy. He knowledgeably attacked and defended a range of politicians, from ward heelers to the Prince of Wales. When Fielding undertook writing prose fiction to ridicule the simple morality of Pamela by Samuel Richardson, he first wrote the hilarious burlesque Shamela (1741). However, he soon found himself considering all the forces working on humans, and in Joseph Andrews (1742) (centering on his invented brother of Pamela), he played with the patterns of Homer, the Bible, and Cervantes to create what he called "a comic epic poem in prose." His preface describing this new art form is one of the major documents in literary criticism of the novel. Jonathan Wild, a fictional rogue biography of a year later, plays heavily with ironic techniques that leave unsettled Fielding's great and recurring theme: the difficulty of uniting goodness, or an outflowing love of others, with prudence in a world where corrupted institutions support divisive pride rather than harmony and self-fulfillment. In his masterpiece Tom Jones (1749), Fielding not only faces this issue persuasively but also shows for the first time the possibility of bringing a whole world into an artistic unity, as his model Homer had done in verse. Fielding develops a coherent and centered sequence of events-something Congreve had done casually on a small scale in Incognita 60 years before. In addition he also relates the plot organically to character and theme, by which he gives us a vision of the archetypal good person (Tom) on a journey toward understanding. Every act by every character in the book reflects the special and typical psychology of that character and the proper moral response. In Tom Jones, Fielding affirms the existence of an order under the surface of chaos. In his last novel, Amelia (1751), which realistically examines the misery of London, he can find nothing reliable except the prudent good heart, and that only if its possessor escapes into the country. Fielding based the title character on his second wife, with whom he was deeply in love. However, ill himself, still saddened by the deaths of his intensely loved first wife and daughter, and depressed by a London magistrate's endless toil against corruption, Fielding saw little hope for goodness in that novel or in his informal Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1755). Shortly after traveling to Lisbon for his health, Fielding died at the age of 47, having proved to his contemporaries and successors that the lowly novel was capable of the richest achievements of art. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Mr. Jonathan Wild der Große
- Original title
- The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great
- Original publication date
- 1743
- People/Characters
- Jonathan Wild
- First words
- As it is necessary that all great and surprising events, the designs of which are laid, conducted, and brought to perfection by the utmost force of human invention and art, should be produced by great and eminent men, so the ... (show all)lives of such may be justly and properly styled the quintessence of history.
- Quotations
- This gentleman had two qualities of a great man, viz., undaunted courage, and an absolute contempt of those ridiculous distinctions of meum and tuum, which would cause endless disputes did not the law happily decide them by c... (show all)onverting both into suum.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)To say the truth, the world have this reason at least to honour uch characters as that of Wild: that, while it is in the power of every man to be perfectly honest, not one in a thousand is capable of being a complete rogue; and few indeed there are who, if they were inspired with the vanity of imitating our hero, would not after much fruitless pains be obliged to own themselves inferior to MR. JONATHAN WILD THE GREAT.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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