The Tragedy of Tragedies (1731) (Paperback)

Henry Fielding

ISBN 10: 1554811635 / ISBN 13: 9781554811632

Published by Broadview Press Ltd, Peterborough, 2013

About this Item

Paperback. Novelist, lawyer, and satirical journalist, Henry Fielding was one of the great literary figures of the eighteenth century. Best known today for the novels Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, Fielding was just as renowned in his own time as a prolific and highly successful dramatist; at one point in 1730 successful productions of four different Fielding plays were running on the London stage. Among them was Tom Thumba farcical short play that Fielding eventually transformed into one of the most extraordinary parodies in English drama: The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb. Henry Fieldings satirical play The Tragedy of Tragedies is presented in a stand-alone volume with introductory and contextual materials closely based on those found in Volume 3 of The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781554811632

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Tragedy of Tragedies (1731) (Paperback)
• Publisher: Broadview Press Ltd, Peterborough
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1554811635
• ISBN 13: 9781554811632
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Best known today for the novels Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, Henry Fielding was just as renowned in his own time as a prolific and highly successful dramatist. Among his most popular plays was The Tragedy of Tragedies: Or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb, one of the most extraordinary parodies in English theater. The print version of the play incorporates, in an elaborate structure of annotations, a remarkable satire of heroic drama and of the pretensions and excesses of “false scholarship.”

This edition includes the text of the play itself and the text of the extraordinary notes (by Fielding’s pseudonym “H. Scriblerus Secundus”), appearing in facing page layout; extensive explanatory notes for the modern reader appear at the bottom of the page. Also included are a substantial introduction and a wide range of background materials that set the work in the context of its time. These contextual materials include contemporary reviews, excerpts from the plays that Fielding’s parody most frequently targeted, and selections from works that provided inspiration for The Tragedy of Tragedies―from contemporary versions of the “Tom Thumb” folktale to satirical writing by authors such as Alexander Pope, John Gay, and George Villiers.

About the Author

Contributing Editor Darryl Domingo is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Memphis.