Sarah Fielding

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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.
  • BirthName: Sarah Fielding
  • Pseudonyms: A Lady; The Author of David Simple
    This appellation became virtually a professional signature: both a self-identification and an authority claim.
    Schellenberg, Betty. “Connecting the Dots: Plotting and Reading the (Woman) Writer’s Career”. Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (CSECS) Conference, Quebec City, QC, 24 Oct. 2002.

Milestones

8 November 1710

SF was born at East Stour in Dorset.
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
xxxviii
Bree, Linda. Sarah Fielding. Twayne, 1996.
xi

22 February 1742

Henry Fielding 's novel Joseph Andrews was published: its inset tale of Leonora and Horatio was probably written by SF .
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
xxxviii

1 May 1744

SF published her first, anonymous novel, The Adventures of David Simple, In Search of a Real Friend, in three volumes.
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
xxxix

13 July 1744

A second edition of SF 's David Simple replaced the first, with revisions and an enthusiastic preface by her brother Henry .
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
xxxix

2 January 1749

SF published The Governess; or, The Little Female Academy, sometimes cited as the earliest full-length book written for children.
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
xxxix

27 January 1762

SF published by subscription her last book, a translation of Xenophon 's Memoirs of Socrates , With the Defence of Socrates.
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
xl

9 April 1768

SF died near Bath, aged only fifty-seven.
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
xl

Biography

Birth and Family

8 November 1710

SF was born at East Stour in Dorset.
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
xxxviii
Bree, Linda. Sarah Fielding. Twayne, 1996.
xi

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