Tom Jones was Henry Fielding’s greatest work. The first piece of English prose to be considered a novel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge praised it as ‘one of the most perfect plots ever planned’. A hero, a heroine, dead parents, adversity, misadventure, mistakes and then resolution, happy ever after. A story told throughout the ages, part of our collective unconscious. Uproarious and unconventional, Tom Jones was adapted by John Osborne for the 1963 Oscar-winning film. Directed by Tony Richardson and starring Albert Finney, it won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The novel has been used as a basis for opera and television adaptations as well as Osborne’s much-loved screenplay. Re-published in this new edition, Tom Jones is eminently suitable for stage productions.
