Sarah Fielding

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Standard Name: Fielding, Sarah
Birth Name: Sarah Fielding
Pseudonym: A Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of David Simple
SF , best known as a mid-eighteenth-century novelist, tried a range of other genres as well: history, criticism, a play, a translation, and a landmark children's book which is both a work of pedagogy and commonly billed as the first school story for girls. Her reputation is gradually emerging from the shadow of her brother Henry 's and enabling recognition of her status as a woman of letters, and her pivotal position in the history of the novel.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Charlotte Yonge
CY edited a two-part anthology of fiction for children, A Storehouse of Stories; it features work by Sarah Fielding (unascribed), both Kilner sisters (all ascribed to Dorothy ), and (probably) Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson .
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan.
1: v-vii
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Charlotte Yonge
CM's preface (dated March 1870) says that as a child she preferred the inherited books of the former generation to any moderns except Maria Edgeworth .
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan.
1: v
She mentions two imitations (by Mary Martha Sherwood
Textual Features Sarah Trimmer
In addition to Catharine Cappe 's work on Sunday schools and versions of fairy stories by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy , the magazine reviewed work by a whole library of didactic, pedagogical, or improving writers, reprinted as...
Intertextuality and Influence Jane Taylor
This is both a conduct book and a work of epistolary fiction, in the style of Sarah Fielding 's The Governess, like it much concerned with the building of friendships. JT , who contributed...
Textual Production Edith Somerville
They wrote and re-wrote by turns, and maintained (like Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier a century earlier in The Cry) that it was impossible to separate the woven texture of their finished writing into...
Intertextuality and Influence Charlotte Smith
Here, under the rubric of writing only scenes of modern life and possible events and eschewing the craze for the wild, the terrible, and the supernatural,
Smith, Charlotte. The Young Philosopher. Editor Kraft, Elizabeth, University Press of Kentucky.
5
CS once more questions the social structure and...
Publishing Mary Martha Sherwood
MMS published at Wellington in ShropshireThe Governess; or, The Little Female Academy, adapted from Sarah Fielding .
Sherwood, Mary Martha. The Governess. F. Houlston.
title-page
Literary responses Mary Martha Sherwood
Charlotte Yonge in 1870 wrote that MMS had adapted the original to her own Evangelical style and had introduced one admirable fairy tale.
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan.
1: vii
Mika Suzuki has commented on Sherwood's relation to Fielding in...
Friends, Associates Frances Sheridan
In London they quickly acquired an influential and highly talented circle of friends, including Samuel Johnson , Samuel Richardson , Edward Young , Frances Brooke , Sarah Scott , and Sarah Fielding . Richardson admired...
Literary responses Evelyn Sharp
Beverly Lyon Clark , who wrote an introduction to this book and thought extremely highly of it, argued that the neglect of it stemmed from its belonging not just to one but to several under-appreciated...
Friends, Associates Sarah Scott
SS formed a friendship with Sarah Fielding at Bath.
Rizzo, Betty, and Sarah Scott. “Introduction”. The History of Sir George Ellison, University Press of Kentucky, p. ix - xlv.
xvii
Friends, Associates Sarah Scott
When these two settled at Batheaston, they became part of a circle of women that included friends they had already made: Sarah Fielding, Elizabeth Cutts , Margaret Riggs (whose daughter was to continue the...
Textual Production Sarah Scott
In November 1759 appeared (bearing the date 1760) an anonymous work of fiction purporting to be socially conscious fact, The Histories of Some of the Penitents in the Magdalen-House. SS was almost certainly implicated...
Friends, Associates Samuel Richardson
His close friends, too, included a remarkable number of writing women: among others Sarah Fielding , sister of his literary arch-rival, Jane Collier , Hester Mulso (later Chapone) , Susanna Highmore (later Duncombe) , and...
Literary responses Samuel Richardson
With Clarissa's rape and death, Richardson's circle became more critical than they had been all along, and objections from them and other readers began flowing thick and fast. The whole novel was discussed in print...

Timeline

By February 1752: James Harris (friend of Sarah Fielding and...

Writing climate item

By February 1752

James Harris (friend of Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier ) published Hermes: or, A Philosophical Inquiry concerning Language and Universal Grammar.

1774: The British Novelist: Or, Virtue and Vice...

Writing climate item

1774

The British Novelist: Or, Virtue and Vice in Miniature was published in twelve volumes of abridged texts by Sarah and Henry Fielding , Richardson , Smollett , and Lennox .

1818: The successful children's writer Elizabeth...

Women writers item

1818

The successful children's writerElizabeth Sandham published The School-Fellows, a Moral Tale, which devotes a chapter to commemoration of Princess Charlotte (who had died on 6 November 1817).

By Christmas 1869: Francis Galton, mathematician, scientist,...

Writing climate item

By Christmas 1869

Francis Galton , mathematician, scientist, and eugenicist, published Hereditary Genius: An Enquiry into its Laws and Consequences,

Texts

Fielding, Sarah. Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple. Priinted for the author and sold by A. Millar, 1747.
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
Fielding, Sarah. Remarks on Clarissa, Addressed to the Author. J. Robinson, 1749.
Fielding, Sarah. The Adventures of David Simple. A. Millar, 1744.
Fielding, Sarah. The Adventures of David Simple, Volume the Last. A. Millar, 1753.
Fielding, Henry, and Sarah Fielding. The Correspondence of Henry and Sarah Fielding. Editors Battestin, Martin C. and Clive T. Probyn, Clarendon Press, 1993.
Fielding, Sarah, and Jane Collier. The Cry. R. and J. Dodsley, 1754.
Fielding, Sarah. The Governess. A. Millar, 1749.
Fielding, Sarah, and Jill E. Grey. The Governess. Oxford University Press, 1968.
Fielding, Sarah. The Histories of Some of the Penitents in the Magdalen-House. John Rivington and J. Dodsley, 1760.
Fielding, Sarah. The History of Ophelia. R. Baldwin, 1760.
Fielding, Sarah. The History of the Countess of Dellwyn. A. Millar, 1759.
Fielding, Sarah. The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia. Printed for the author and sold by A. Millar; J. Dodsley, and J. Leake, 1757.
Fielding, Sarah. The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia. Editor Johnson, Christopher Dyer, Bucknell University Press and Associated University Presses, 1994.
Fielding, Sarah. Xenophon’s Memoirs of Socrates, With the Defence of Socrates. A. Millar, 1762.