Editing Sarah Fielding

{{Short description|English author (1710–1768)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
|name = Sarah Fielding
|image = 
|pseudonym = "the author of David Simple"
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1710|11|8|df=y}}
|birth_place = [[East Stour, Dorset]]
|death_date = {{Death date and age|1768|4|9|1710|1|8|df=y}}
|death_place = [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]], [[Somerset]], England
|occupation = Novelist
|nationality = English
|relatives = [[Henry Fielding]]<br>[[John Fielding]]
|period = 1744–62
|genre = Sentimental literature, children's literature, biography, literary criticism
|movement = [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]
|influences =
|influenced =
}}
'''Sarah Fielding''' (8 November 1710 – 9 April 1768) was an English author and sister of the playwright, novelist and magistrate [[Henry Fielding]]. She wrote ''[[The Governess, or The Little Female Academy]]'' (1749), thought to be the first novel in English aimed expressly at [[children's literature|children]].<ref>H. Carpenter and M. Prichard. 1984. ''The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature'', Oxford University Press.</ref> Earlier she had success with her novel ''The Adventures of David Simple'' (1744).<ref>"Sarah Fielding". ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online''. Retrieved 19 December 2009.</ref><ref name="Smithsonian">{{Cite web |last1=Boissoneault |first1=Lorraine |title=The First Novel for Children Taught Girls the Power of Reading |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-novel-children-taught-girls-power-reading-180968765 |website=Smithsonian.com |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |accessdate=11 April 2018 |date=11 April 2018}}</ref>

==Childhood==
Sarah Fielding was born at [[East Stour, Dorset]] in 1710 to Edmund Feilding ''[sic]'' and his wife Sarah, ''née'' Gould (died 1718),<ref name="Feminist" >''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present'', Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy, eds (London, Batsford, 1990), pp. 370–371.</ref> after [[Henry Fielding|Henry]] and Ursula; her younger siblings were Anne, Beatrice, and Edmund. Sarah's father, Edmund, the third son of John Feilding, was a military officer and relative of the [[Earl of Denbigh|Earls of Denbigh]] (his father, John, had been the youngest son of the 3rd Earl). Although Edmund spelled his last name "Feilding" as often as "Fielding," both Henry and Sarah spelled the name "Fielding." When asked by an Earl of Denbigh why, Henry Fielding said, "I cannot tell, my Lord, except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell".<ref>Battestin 7–8.</ref> Sarah Fielding's mother, Sarah Gould, was the daughter of Sir Henry Gould, a judge on the King's Bench who had been reappointed to the [[Queen Anne of Great Britain|Queen's]] Bench. This descent is important for understanding the early life and education of Edmund Feilding's children.

Edmund left the care of his children to his wife's mother, Lady Sarah Gould, while he built his career in London. The children grew up in her home in [[Glastonbury]] and their paternal grandfather's house in East Stour (John Feilding being a [[latitudinarianism|latitudinarian]] [[Cambridge University|Cambridge-educated]] [[priest|parish priest]] with three livings, who had been considered for a bishopric in Ireland.<ref>Battestin 10.</ref> Henry was sent to [[Eton College|Eton]], but all of the daughters were sent to Mary Rookes's boarding school in [[Salisbury]]. This was "non-academic, but she was later extremely well read in Greek, Latin, French and English."<ref name="Feminist" />

When Edmund's first wife (Fielding's mother) died in 1718, Edmund married Anne Rapha, a [[Roman Catholic]] widow, who brought with her several children, and later bore Edmund a son and half-brother for Henry and Sarah, the future reformer [[John Fielding]]. Sir Henry and Lady Sarah Gould (Fielding's maternal grandparents) had fallen out with Edmund before the death of the children's mother. Lady Gould was highly displeased with Edmund's second marriage, and Anne Fielding (née Rapha) was the subject of much anti-Catholic sentiment from the elder generation of the family. Lady Gould was so set against Anne and her enlargement to the family that, in 1721, she sued for custody of the children and ownership of the family house in East Stour. She eventually won, leaving the children unable to see their father for some years.

==Writing career==
[[Image:Fielding-DavidSimple.png|thumb|left|Second edition of ''The Adventures of David Simple'', to which [[Henry Fielding]] affixed a preface]]
In the 1740s, Fielding moved to [[London]], sometimes living with her sisters and sometimes with her brother Henry and his family. The women of the family lacked sufficient money for a [[dowry]], and consequently none married. Even when Lady Gould died in 1733, there was little money for the children.

Fielding turned to writing to make a living,<ref name="Smithsonian"/> beginning while she lived with her brother and acted as his housekeeper. In 1742, [[Henry Fielding]] published ''[[Joseph Andrews]]'', and Sarah Fielding is often credited with having written the letter from Leonora to Horatio (two of the characters in the book). In 1743, Henry Fielding published his ''Miscellanies'' (containing his life of [[Jonathan Wild]]), and his sister may have written its narrative of the life of [[Anne Boleyn]].

In 1744, Fielding published a novel, ''The Adventures of David Simple in Search of a Faithful Friend''. As was the habit, it was published anonymously, while pleading financial distress. The novel was quite successful and gathered praise from contemporaries,<ref name="Smithsonian"/> including the publisher and novelist [[Samuel Richardson]]. As a "moral romance", it features two disinherited couples. Both heroines point to "the stifling of women's intellect and the barriers against a gentlewoman's earning her living." It was followed by the ''Familiar Letters'' (1747) of the two couples and by a ''Volume the Last'' added to a later edition (1753).<ref name="Feminist"/> Richardson, who was himself the target of Henry Fielding's satire, said that he thought Sarah and Henry were possessed of equal gifts of writing. ''The Adventures of David Simple'' went into a second edition within ten weeks, and was translated into French and German. The title pages to Sarah Fielding's other novels often carried the advertisement that they were written by "the author of David Simple". The novel was sufficiently popular that Fielding wrote ''Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple'' as an [[epistolary novel|epistolary]] furtherance to the novel in [[1747 in literature|1747]]. In [[1753 in literature|1753]], she wrote a sequel to ''The Adventures of David Simple'' entitled ''David Simple: Volume the Last''.

''David Simple'' was one of the earliest [[sentimental novel]]s, featuring a wayfaring hero in search of true friendship who triumphs by good nature and moral strength. He finds happiness in marriage and a rural, bucolic life, away from the corruptions of the city. Simple is an analogue, in a sense, of the figure of Heartsfree, in Henry Fielding's ''Jonathan Wild'' and Squire Allworthy in his ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling|Tom Jones]]''. However, he also shares features with other sentimental figures who find peace only with escape from corruption and the harmony of a new [[Utopia]]. In her ''Volume the Last'', however, Fielding's fiction, like Henry Fielding's, is darker and shows less faith in the triumph of goodness in the face of a corrosive, immoral world.

[[Image:Fielding governess2.jpg|thumb|right|Title page from ''[[The Governess, or The Little Female Academy]]'' (1749), by Sarah Fielding, the first full-length novel written for children]]
Sarah Fielding wrote three other novels with original stories. The most significant of these was ''The Governess, or The Little Female Academy'' (1749), which is the first novel in English written [[children's literature|especially for children]].<ref name="Smithsonian"/> In addition, she wrote ''[[The History of the Countess of Dellwyn]]'' (1759) and ''The History of Ophelia'' (1760).

As a critic, Sarah Fielding's ''Remarks on Clarissa'' (1749) concern the novel ''[[Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady|Clarissa]]'' by Samuel Richardson. As a biographer, she wrote ''The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia'' (1757), a history, written from Greek and Roman sources, on the lives of [[Cleopatra VII|Cleopatra]] and [[Octavia Minor|Octavia]], two famous women of Roman times. As a translator she produced ''Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates'', with the ''Defense of [[Socrates]] Before His Judges'' (1762), a work by the Ancient Greek writer and soldier [[Xenophon]] concerning the philosopher.

==Final years==
Fielding's sisters died between 1750 and 1751 and Henry in 1754. Fielding retired from London and moved to a small house just outside [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]]. The famous philanthropist [[Ralph Allen]] and the similarly famous [[Elizabeth Montagu]] (a member of the [[Blue Stockings Society (England)|Blue Stockings Society]]) gave her some financial aid. In about 1767, the novelist [[Sarah Scott]], sister of Elizabeth Montagu, invited Fielding to come and live with her in a female utopian community, as an attempt to create the utopia described in ''[[Millenium<!-- PLEASE NOTE that "Millenium" is the correct spelling here. --> Hall]]'', but Fielding declined. She died in 1768. There is a memorial plaque to her on the west porch of [[Bath Abbey]].

==List of works==
*1744 – ''The Adventures of David Simple'' >> A download link [https://archive.org/details/adventuresdavid00fielgoog]
*1747 – ''Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple''
*1749 – ''[[The Governess, or The Little Female Academy]]'' >> A download link for a rewritten work [https://archive.org/details/governessoryoun00fielgoog]
*1749 – ''Remarks on "[[Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady|Clarissa]]"''
*1753 – ''David Simple: Volume the Last''
*1754 – ''[[The Cry (book)|The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable]]'' (with [[Jane Collier]])
*1757 – ''The Lives of [[Cleopatra]] and [[Octavia the Younger|Octavia]]'' >> A download link [https://archive.org/details/livescleopatraa00fielgoog]
*1759 – ''[[The History of the Countess of Dellwyn]]''
*1761 – ''The History of Ophelia''  >> Download links for volume 1 [https://archive.org/details/historyopheliap00fielgoog] and Volume 2 [https://archive.org/details/historyopheliap01fielgoog]
*1762 – ''[[Xenophon]]'s Memoirs of [[Socrates]], with the Defense of Socrates Before His Judges'' >> A download link [https://archive.org/details/xenophonsmemoir00fielgoog]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==References==
*[http://www.chawtonhouse.org/library/biographies/fielding.html Chawton House Women's Writing Entry]
*Martin C. Battestin and Ruthe R. Battestin: ''Henry Fielding: A Life.'' New York: Routledge, 1989

==Further reading==
*Barchas, Janine. "Sarah Fielding's Dashing Style and Eighteenth-Century Print Culture". ''ELH'' 63.3 (1996): 633–56.
*Battestin, Martin C. and Clive T. Probyn, eds. ''The Correspondence of Henry and Sarah Fielding''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
*Battestin, Martin C. "Henry Fielding, Sarah Fielding, and 'the Dreadful Sin of Incest'". ''Novel'' 13.1 (1979): 6–18.
*Bree, Linda. ''Sarah Fielding''. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996.
*Downs-Miers, Deborah. "Spring the Trap: Subtexts and Subversions". ''Fetter'd or Free?: British Women Novelists, 1670&ndash;1815''. Eds. Mary Anne Schofield and Cecilia Macheski. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1986.
*Eaves, T. C. Duncan and Ben D. Kimpel. ''Samuel Richardson: A Biography''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
*Fielding, Sarah. ''The History of Ophelia.'' Ed. Peter Sabor. Peterborough, ON: [[Broadview Press]], 2004. {{ISBN|978-1-55111-120-9}}.
*Johnson, Christopher D. "Introduction". ''The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia''. London: Associated University Presses, 1994.
*Needham, Arnold E. ''The Life and Works of Sarah Fielding''. 1943.
*[[Nussbaum, Felicity A.]] ''The Limits of the Human: Fictions of Anomaly, Race, and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
*Rizzo, Betty. ''Companions Without Vows: Relationships Among Eighteenth-Century British Women''. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994.
*Sabor, Peter. "Richardson, Henry Fielding, and Sarah Fielding". ''The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1740-1830''. Eds. Thomas Keymer and Jon Mee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
*Schellenberg, Betty A. ''The Professionalization of Women Writers in Eighteenth-Century Britain''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
*Schofield, Mary Anne. ''Masking and Unmasking the Female Mind''. University of Delaware Press, 1990.
*Skinner, Gillian. "'The Price of a Tear': Economic Sense and Sensibility in Sarah Fielding's ''David Simple''". ''Literature and History'' 3rd series. 1.1 (1992): 16&ndash;28.
*Spencer, Jane. ''The Rise of the Woman Novelist: From Aphra Behn to Jane Austen''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
*Spender, Dale. ''Mothers of the Novel''. London: Pandora, 1986.
*Stern, Simon. "Speech and Property in ''David Simple.''" ''ELH'' 79.3 (2012): 623–54.
*Stockstill, Ashley. "Better Homes and Gardens: The Fairy World(s) of Sarah Fielding and Sarah Scott". ''Feminist Studies in English Literature'' 6.2 (1998): 137–58.
*Terry, Richard. "David Simple and the Fallacy of Friendship". ''SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900''. 44.3 (2004): 525–44.
*[[Janet Todd|Todd, Janet]]. ''The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing and Fiction, 1660&ndash;1800''. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
*Woodward, Carolyn. "Sarah Fielding's Self-Destructing Utopia: ''The Adventures of David Simple''". ''Living by the Pen: Early British Women Writers''. Ed. Dale Spender. New York: Teachers College Press, 1992.

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{wikisource author}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=747| name=Sarah Fielding}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Sarah Fielding}}
* {{Librivox author |id=14291}}
* {{Cite web|author=Clive Probyn|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9405|title=Fielding, Sarah (1710–1768)|work=[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=2004|accessdate=2006-11-11}}

{{18CBritChildrensLiterature}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fielding, Sarah}}
[[Category:1710 births]]
[[Category:1768 deaths]]
[[Category:18th-century English novelists]]
[[Category:18th-century English women writers]]
[[Category:18th-century English writers]]
[[Category:English women children's writers]]
[[Category:English women novelists]]
[[Category:Fielding family|Sarah]]
[[Category:People from Glastonbury]]
[[Category:People from North Dorset District]]
[[Category:Writers from Dorset]]
[[Category:Writers from Somerset]]