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Amelia

English BooksWhale Edition by Henry Fielding

Fielding’s searching novel of marriage, debt, virtue, and social pressure in eighteenth-century London.

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Amelia

Amelia follows Captain Booth and Amelia through imprisonment, temptation, debt, family distress, and moral testing. This edition presents Henry Fielding’s later novel for readers of English realism, eighteenth-century fiction, and classic studies of marriage under pressure.

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Why this edition can be shared

Henry Fielding died in 1754, and Amelia was first published in 1751. These dates support the public-domain basis for this original English edition.

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Amelia

Henry Fielding

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BOOK I.

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Containing the exordium, &c.

The various accidents which befel a very worthy couple after their uniting in the state of matrimony will be the subject of the following history. The distresses which they waded through were some of them so exquisite, and the incidents which produced these so extraordinary, that they seemed to require not only the utmost malice, but the utmost invention, which superstition hath ever attributed to Fortune: though whether any such being interfered in the case, or, indeed, whether there be any such being in the universe, is a matter which I by no means presume to determine in the affirmative. To speak a bold truth, I am, after much mature deliberation, inclined to suspect that the public voice hath, in all ages, done much injustice to Fortune, and hath convicted her of many facts in which she had not the least concern. I question much whether we may not, by natural means, account for the success of knaves, the calamities of fools, with all the miseries in which men of sense sometimes involve themselves, by quitting the directions of Prudence, and following the blind guidance of a predominant passion; in short, for all the ordinary phenomena which are imputed to Fortune; whom, perhaps, men accuse with no less absurdity in life, than a bad player complains of ill luck at the game of chess.

But if men are sometimes guilty of laying improper blame on this imaginary being, they are altogether as apt to make her amends by ascribing to her honours which she as little deserves. To retrieve the ill consequences of a foolish conduct, and by struggling manfully with distress to subdue it, is one of the noblest efforts of wisdom and virtue. Whoever, therefore, calls such a man fortunate, is guilty of no less impropriety in speech than he would be who should call the statuary or the poet fortunate who carved a Venus or who writ an Iliad.

Life may as properly be called an art as any other; and the great incidents in it are no more to be considered as mere accidents than the several members of a fine statue or a noble poem. The critics in all these are not content with seeing anything to be great without knowing why and how it came to be so. By examining carefully the several gradations which conduce to bring every model to perfection, we learn truly to know that science in which the model is formed: as histories of this kind, therefore, may properly be called models of _human life_, so, by observing minutely the several incidents which tend to the catastrophe or completion of the whole, and the minute causes whence those incidents are produced, we shall best be instructed in this most useful of all arts, which I call the _art_ of _life_.

Table of contents

Inside this edition

  1. 01Full text
  2. 02BOOK I.
  3. 03Chapter i.
  4. 04Chapter ii
  5. 05Chapter iii.
  6. 06Chapter iv.
  7. 07Chapter v.
  8. 08Chapter vi
  9. 09Chapter vii.
  10. 10Chapter viii
  11. 11Chapter ix
  12. 12Chapter x
  13. 13BOOK II.
  14. 14Chapter i.
  15. 15Chapter ii.
  16. 16Chapter iii.
  17. 17Chapter iv
  18. 18Chapter v.
  19. 19Chapter vi.
  20. 20Chapter vii.
  21. 21Chapter viii.
  22. 22Chapter ix.
  23. 23BOOK III.
  24. 24Chapter i.
  25. 25Chapter ii.
  26. 26Chapter iii.
  27. 27Chapter iv.
  28. 28Chapter v.
  29. 29Chapter vi.
  30. 30Chapter vii.
  31. 31“‘E. HARRIS.’”
  32. 32Chapter viii.
  33. 33Chapter ix.
  34. 34Chapter x.
  35. 35Chapter xi.
  36. 36Chapter xii.
  37. 37BOOK IV.
  38. 38Chapter i.
  39. 39Chapter ii.
  40. 40DAMON.”
  41. 41Chapter iii.
  42. 42“DEAR BILLY,
  43. 43“F. MATTHEWS.”
  44. 44“R. HARRISON.”
  45. 45Chapter iv.
  46. 46Chapter v.
  47. 47Chapter vi.
  48. 48Chapter vii.
  49. 49Chapter viii.
  50. 50Chapter ix.
  51. 51END OF VOL. I.
  52. 52VOL. II.
  53. 53BOOK V.
  54. 54Chapter i.
  55. 55part I have no acquaintance with any London physicians, nor do I know
  56. 56Chapter ii.
  57. 57Chapter iii.
  58. 58Chapter iv.
  59. 59Chapter v.
  60. 60Chapter vi.
  61. 61Chapter vii.
  62. 62Chapter viii.
  63. 63Chapter ix.
  64. 64BOOK VI.
  65. 65Chapter i.
  66. 66Chapter ii.
  67. 67Chapter iii.
  68. 68“DEAR MADAM,
  69. 69Chapter iv.
  70. 70Chapter v.
  71. 71Chapter vi.
  72. 72Chapter vii.
  73. 73Chapter viii.
  74. 74Chapter ix.
  75. 75BOOK VII.
  76. 76Chapter i.
  77. 77Chapter ii.
  78. 78Chapter iii.
  79. 79Chapter iv.
  80. 80Chapter v.
  81. 81Chapter vi.
  82. 82Chapter vii.
  83. 83Chapter viii.
  84. 84Chapter ix.
  85. 85Chapter x.
  86. 86BOOK VIII.
  87. 87Chapter i.
  88. 88Chapter ii.
  89. 89Chapter iii.
  90. 90Chapter iv.
  91. 91Chapter v.
  92. 92Chapter vi.
  93. 93Chapter vii.
  94. 94Chapter viii.
  95. 95Chapter ix.
  96. 96Chapter x.
  97. 97END OF VOL. II.
  98. 98VOL. III.
  99. 99BOOK IX.
  100. 100Chapter i.
  101. 101Chapter ii
  102. 102Chapter iii.
  103. 103Chapter iv.
  104. 104Chapter v.
  105. 105Chapter vi.
  106. 106Chapter vii.
  107. 107Chapter viii.
  108. 108Chapter ix.
  109. 109Chapter x.
  110. 110“AMELIA BOOTH.”
  111. 111BOOK X.
  112. 112Chapter i.
  113. 113Chapter ii.
  114. 114Chapter iii.
  115. 115Chapter iv.
  116. 116Chapter v.
  117. 117Chapter vi.
  118. 118Chapter vii.
  119. 119Chapter viii.
  120. 120Chapter ix.
  121. 121BOOK XI.
  122. 122Chapter i.
  123. 123Chapter ii.
  124. 124Chapter iii.
  125. 125Chapter iv.
  126. 126Chapter v.
  127. 127Chapter vi.
  128. 128Chapter vii.
  129. 129Chapter viii.
  130. 130“ATKINSON.”
  131. 131Chapter ix.
  132. 132“T. JAMES.
  133. 133W. BOOTH.”
  134. 134BOOK XII.
  135. 135Chapter i.
  136. 136Chapter ii.
  137. 137Chapter iii.
  138. 138Chapter iv.
  139. 139Chapter v.
  140. 140Chapter vi.
  141. 141Chapter vii.
  142. 142Chapter viii.
  143. 143F. ATKINSON.”
  144. 144Chapter ix.
  145. 145THE END.

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