Tom Jones is rightly regarded as Fielding’s greatest work, and one of the first and most influential of English novels. At the center of one of the most ingenious plots in English fiction stands a hero whose actions were as shocking in their day as we might find them funny today. Tom Jones, a young man of questionable birth, is raised as the son of a member of the minor gentry, only to fall prey to the cruelties of his malicious cousin and the wiles of the neighboring heiress. Readers have reveled in the classic adventures of the randy and rambunctious Tom Jones for generations now and will most likely continue to do so for years to come.