The adventures of David Simple : containing an account of his travels through the cities of London and Westminster, in the search of a real friend ; and, The adventures of David Simple, volume the last : in which his history is concluded /

David Simple is the most-read work of Sarah Fielding, best known as the sister of novelist Henry Fielding. This attractive new edition by Sabor (Laval Univ.) is the fourth in Kentucky's series of 18th-century women's novels; it invites comparison with Malcolm Kelsall's edition (CH, May'70), still in print. Sabor's edition is by far the more thorough. The most important difference is the treatment of the 600 revisions Henry Fielding made in the second edition of his sister's novel. Unlike Kelsall, who printed this second edition, Sabor reproduces the first; Henry's "corrections" are relegated to an appendix, which indicates all the differences between the first and second editions. Sabor carefully reproduces even the accidentals of the first edition, down to the nine different varieties of dashes, sometimes giving the page an idiosyncratic appearance. The 30-page biographical introduction, the chronology, and the 19 pages of useful notes tend to stick to factual (rather than interpretive) questions. Recommended for scholarly collections in institutions with strong offerings in 18th-century English literature. J. T. Lynch University of Pennsylvania

A bestseller when it first appeared in 1744, The Adventures of David Simple has since suffered at the hands of Sarah's more famous brother, Henry, who edited the novel substantially in all subsequent editions. Now Sabor has done a service to academics and general readers by restoring Sarah Fielding's original text. In the opening chapters of this "Moral Romance," David Simple's brother cheats him out of his inheritance; David's fortune is restored only when a guilt-stricken accomplice reveals the crime. After this betrayal, David makes a quixotic resolution "To travel though the whole World rather than not meet with a real Friend." He finds nothing but deceit until he meets with Cynthia, Valentine and Camilla, genteel but impoverished young people whose relations have unfairly cast them off. The novel concludes with a double marriage; the couples will live together in a utopian establishment funded by David's inheritance. Fielding's 1753 sequel, Volume the Last, is considerably darker. David endures a Job-like series of afflictions as, plagued by lawsuits, false friends and illness, he loses his fortune, his house, his children and his beloved wife. On his deathbed, David meditates on "the Horrors of Friendship": attachment to loved ones leads only to pain in a world where "solid and lasting Happiness is not to be attained." Sabor's introduction lays out the family tragedies and financial difficulties that perplexed Fielding's career and provides a detailed revisionist account of her impressive literary accomplishments. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved