Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Henry Fielding

The Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Henry Fielding is a reference document listing the various texts by the eighteenth century English novelist Henry Fielding that Project Gutenberg has digitized and made available in their free online library. Project Gutenberg, founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, has been one of the most important institutions in the digital recovery of public domain literature, and its Fielding collection covers most of his major published works.

Fielding lived from 1707 to 1754 and was one of the founders of the English novel as a serious literary form. His major novels including Joseph Andrews of 1742, Tom Jones of 1749, and Amelia of 1751 established many of the conventions that the English novel would develop across the following two centuries. Alongside the novels he produced a substantial body of dramatic, journalistic, and miscellaneous writing during his earlier career as a playwright and his later career as a London magistrate. The Project Gutenberg collection brings together most of this material.

An index of this kind serves as a navigation tool for readers approaching Fielding’s work for the first time or for scholars looking for specific titles among the substantial body of writing. The index typically lists each available text with its publication date, the relevant Gutenberg ebook number, and links or references to the actual text files. The format reflects the practical realities of working with a large digital library where the user needs efficient ways to locate specific items.

For readers wanting to read Fielding, the natural starting point is Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones, both available in the Gutenberg collection. Amelia is the more difficult of his three major novels but rewards serious attention. The various shorter works including The History of the Life of the Late Mr Jonathan Wild the Great, A Journey from This World to the Next, and the various periodical essays from his Champion and Covent Garden Journal periods give a fuller sense of his range. The Project Gutenberg index makes the entire body of work accessible in a way that earlier generations of Fielding readers could only have dreamed of.