author
Sarah Fielding
1710–1768
An inventive 18th-century writer, she helped shape both the English novel and children's literature. Best known for The Adventures of David Simple and The Governess, her work brought unusual attention to friendship, feeling, and the inner lives of women and children.
2 Audiobooks
The Governess; Or, The Little Female Academy
by Sarah Fielding
Remarks on Clarissa (1749)
by Sarah Fielding
About the author
Born in Dorset in 1710, Sarah Fielding was an English novelist and translator who wrote during a formative period for the novel. She was the sister of Henry Fielding, but her own writing earned lasting attention for its emotional depth and for the way it explored character from the inside.
Her best-known books include The Adventures of David Simple (1744), a popular novel about the search for honesty and friendship, and The Governess; or, The Little Female Academy (1749), widely regarded as the first novel in English written expressly for children. That combination of adult fiction and pioneering children's writing makes her an especially interesting figure in literary history.
Fielding spent much of her later life in Bath and died there in 1768. Readers often return to her work for its warmth, moral seriousness, and quiet originality.