Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Signet / New American Library (1961), Edition: New Ed, Paperback, 224 pages
Description
Fiction. Mystery. HTML: 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..
Media reviews
The New Statesman
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.
User reviews
LibraryThing member JBD1
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
Show More
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. Show Less
LibraryThing member thorold
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
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
Show More
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 Bush, Blair, or Berlusconi. Crime may change with the centuries, but politics is still the same as ever... Show Less
LibraryThing member stillatim
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
Show More
instead of writing memoirs about their navel-fluff? I do not know. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1741
Physical description
224 p.
ISBN
0451003047 / 9780451003041