''The Life and Death of the Late Jonathan Wild, the Great'' is a

satiric Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or ...

novel by

Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English writer and magistrate known for the use of humour and satire in his works. His 1749 comic novel ''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'' was a seminal work in the genre. Along wi ...

. It was published in 1743 in Fielding's ''Miscellanies'', third volume. It is a satiric account of the life of London underworld boss

Jonathan Wild Jonathan Wild, also spelled Wilde (1682 or 1683 – 24 May 1725), was an English thief-taker and a major figure in London's criminal underworld, notable for operating on both sides of the law, posing as a public-spirited vigilante entitled th ...

(1682–1725). It is an experiment in the various narrative genres that were popular at the time: serious history, criminal biography, political satire, and

picaresque novel The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for ' rogue' or 'rascal') is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish but appealing hero, usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrup ...

. Some have argued that it is mainly a satire on Britain's first Prime Minister

Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (; 26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British Whigs (British political party), Whig statesman who is generally regarded as the ''de facto'' first Prim ...

, who was continuously charged by his political enemies with allegations of corruption.

Plot summary

The book tells the satiric biographical story of an early 18th-century underworld boss,

, from his birth in 1682 until his execution in 1725. As a thief-taker, Wild's job was to capture criminals and take them to the authorities in order to collect a reward, but he made notorious profit from managing an underground network of malefactors who paid him to avoid being denounced. Fielding's biography of Jonathan Wild allows him to satirize various aspects of English society at the time. It features an interpolated romantic story that is nowhere to be found in other accounts of the historical Wild. It has been argued that this was Fielding's way of rendering the criminal biography of Wild into a novel of the kind that was becoming increasingly popular in his time.Castro-Santana, 2018 pp. 128-142

Notes

External links

Brief survey of the work on Bartleby.com

Fielding's History of Jonathan Wild, on Gutenberg
*

References

*Battestin, Martin, and Battestin, Ruthe. ''Henry Fielding: A Life''. London: Routledge, 1993. *Castro-Santana, Anaclara.
Errors and Reconciliations: Marriage in the Plays and Novels of Henry Fielding
'. London/NY: Routledge, 2018. . 1743 novels 18th-century British novels British comedy novels Biographical novels British satirical novels Novels by Henry Fielding Robert Walpole British picaresque novels {{18thC-novel-stub