History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. It is a Bildungsroman and a picaresque novel. It was first published on 28 February 1749 in London and is among the earliest English works to be classified as a novel. But he comes back into the plot under the fake name of 'Little Benjamin,' as he works as Tom's barber/surgeon after Tom's injury by Ensign Northerton at the inn at Gloucester. Partridge soon gives up the Little Benjamin thing to become Tom's assistant on his travels. The main theme of the novel is the contrast between Tom Jones's good nature, flawed but eventually corrected by his love for virtuous Sophia Western, and his half-brother Blifil's hypocrisy.