'a scrupulously researched account of Fielding's political writings through the filter of recent scholarly debate about them, demonstrating very clearly where he differs from those who came before, and providing both a staging-post and a start-point for further twenty-first-century scholarly discussion of Fielding's political views.' Eighteenth-Century Life 'In its detailed explications of the interactions between [differing] faces of Fielding's politics, Mr Downie's account is extremely helpful and clarifying, perhaps the most through reading of the evidence to date-and especially notable for reading the silences too. It will likely remain the definitive account.' The Scriblerian

• Introduction; Chapter 1 ‘So Dissipated, Though Well Born and Well-Educated a Youth’; Chapter 2 ‘Unshap’d Monsters of a Wanton Brain!’: 1728—1731; Chapter 3 ‘Court Poet’?: 1732—1735; Chapter 4 ‘Dramatick Satire’; Chapter 5 ‘Writ in Defence of the Rights of the People’: 1739—1741; Chapter 6 The Political Significance of the Opposition. A vision; Chapter 7 ‘There are Several Boobys Who are Squires’: 1742—1745; Chapter 8 ‘A Strenuous Advocate for the Ministry’: 1745—1748; Chapter 9 ‘A Hearty Well-Wisher to the Glorious Cause of Liberty’: Tom Jones and the Forty-Five; Chapter 10 ‘This Botcher in Law and Politics’: 1749—1754; conclusion Conclusion;