SOURCE: Battestin, Martin C. and Ruthe R. Battestin “Politics, Novels, and The Law.” In Henry Fielding: A Life, pp. 301-308. London: Routledge, 1989.

In the following excerpt, Battestin examines the political, social, and cultural context for Fielding's composition and the public reception of Shamela.

For many reasons, then—personal, financial, political—these months were a distressing time for Fielding. In this same year of 1741 we also first hear of the chronic ill health that plagued him for the rest of his life, undermining a robust constitution. That he managed to rise above this sea of troubles to produce Shamela attests not only to an irrepressible sense of humor, but also to that “philosophical” temper, as he called it, which would see him through deeper afflictions. From our vantage point two and a half centuries later, moreover, this little book marked a turning point in the development of the modern...