author
Sarah Fielding
1710–1768
An early English novelist with a sharp eye for feeling and friendship, she helped open new ground in fiction for women and children. Best known for The Adventures of David Simple and The Governess, her books mix moral seriousness with warmth and psychological insight.
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 part of a literary family and was the sister of novelist Henry Fielding. She built a writing career of her own in the mid-18th century, publishing fiction, translations, and educational works at a time when women writers had limited freedom and recognition.
Her best-known novel, The Adventures of David Simple (1744), won attention for its emotional depth and its interest in loyalty, kindness, and human character. She is also remembered for The Governess; or, The Little Female Academy (1749), often described as the first full-length novel in English written especially for children.
Fielding spent her later years in Bath and died there in 1768. Today she is valued not just as Henry Fielding’s sister, but as an important writer in her own right whose work helped shape the early novel and gave uncommon attention to the inner lives of women and children.