Tom Jones

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Tom Jones was Henry Fieldings greatest work. The first piece of English prose to be considered a novel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge praised it as one of the most perfect plots ever planned. A hero, a heroine, dead parents, adversity, misadventure, mistakes and then resolution, happy ever after. A story told throughout the ages, part of our collective unconscious. Uproarious and unconventional, Tom Jones was adapted by John Osborne for the 1963 Oscar-winning film. Directed by Tony Richardson and starring Albert Finney, it won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The novel has been used as a basis for opera and television adaptations as well as Osbornes much-loved screenplay. Re-published in this new edition, Tom Jones is eminently suitable for stage productions.

Author Bio

JOHN OSBORNE was born in London in 1929. He worked as a journalist before becoming an Assistant Stage Manager and actor with several repertory companies. His Look Back in Anger (1956) has come to stand as a key text for modern British Drama, and prompted other successes with The Entertainer and Epitaph for George Dillon. He was the first of many writers to be discovered by the Royal Court's policy of a Writer's Theatre, and Look Back in Anger was the first of the Royal Court's plays to be internationally recognised. Osborne adapted Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer for film.