Jonathan Wild was published as the third volume of the
Miscellanies "by Henry Fielding, Esq." which came out in the
spring of 1743. From the reference to Lady Booby's steward, Peter
Pounce, in Book II., it seems to have been, as Mr. Austin Dobson
has observed, and as the date of publication would imply, composed
in part at least subsequently to Joseph Andrews, which appeared
early in 1742. But the same critic goes on to say that whenever
completed, Jonathan Wild was probably "planned and begun before
Joseph Andrews was published, as it is in the highest degree
improbable that Fielding, always carefully watching the public
taste, would have followed up that fortunate adventure in a new
direction by a work so entirely different from it as Jonathan
Wild." [Footnote: Henry Fielding, 1900, p. 145.] Mr. Dobson's
surmise is undoubtedly correct. The "strange, surprising
adventures" of Mrs. Heartfree belong to a different school of
fiction from that with which we commonly associate Fielding. They
are such as we should expect one of Defoe's characters to go
through, rather than a woman whose creator had been gratified only
a year before at the favourable reception accorded to Fanny and
Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop.

That Jonathan Wild is for the most part a magnificent example of
sustained irony, one of the best in our literature, critics have
generally agreed. The comparison steadfastly insisted upon between
Jonathan Wild's greatness and the greatness which the world looks
up to, but which without being called criminal is yet devoid of
humanity, is admirable. Admirable, too, is the ironical humour, in
which Fielding so excelled, and which in Jonathan Wild he seldom
drops. It would take too long to mention all the particularly good
ironical passages, but among them are the conversation between