Biography
information taken from: Sarah Fielding (Linda Bree, 1996), The Orlando Project online (Cambridge University), The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online (entry by Clive Probyn, 2004), The Chawton House Library online (entry by Rebecca Garwood) click on the webpage name to go there - most require a subscription but your library may subscribe. Chawton house is free
1710 Fielding is born November 8 at East Stour, Dorset to Colonel Edmund Fielding and Sarah Gould, and lives there with four sisters and two brothers, including famed novelist Henry Fielding
1718 Her mother Sarah dies April 14 and Colonel Fielding marries the widowed Anne Rapha, a Roman Catholic with six sons 1719 Her father pursues a military career and leaves the care of the children to Lady Sarah Gould, Fielding's maternal grandmother. The girls attend boarding school in Salisbury. Lady Gould sues for custody, removing them from East Stour, in part due to Anne Fielding's Catholicism. 1722 Lady Gould wins custody, the girls remain with Mrs. Rooke at the boarding school during term. Sarah learns Latin and Greek from Arthur Collier and makes lasting friendships with his daughter, fellow author and collaborator Jane Collier and her brother Henry's friend, James Harris who would assist with her translation of Xenophon. 1733 Lady Gould dies and Sarah returns to the East Stour estate until it is sold in 1739. 1739-44 Fielding probably lives with her sister Catharine in Westminster, then with Henry in London and in Bath |
1741 Her father, now General Fielding dies.
1742-3 Henry includes Sarah's "from Leonora to Horatia" in Joseph Andrews and her narrative of Anne Bolyn "A Journey from this World to the Next" in Miscellanies 1744 David Simple is published 1747 Familiar Letters, a plotless collection of prose, letters and narrative is published by subscription. Subscribers include novelist Samuel Richardson. 1749 The Governess is published. Fielding is living with her sisters and next door to friend Jane Collier. 1750-1 Fielding's three sisters die, she is sued for debt. 1753 David Simple, Volume the Last is published, with an introduction probably by Jane Collier. 1754 The Cry published, a collaboration with Collier it is an ironic, structurally original social satire. 1754 Jane Collier dies. 1755 Fielding lives near Lady Montagu who provides financial patronage. |
1757 The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia, sold by subscription
1758 Fielding works on the translation of Xenophon with James Harris. 1759 The History of the Countess of Dellwyn, containing an essay in literary theory is published. 1760 The History of Ophelia, an epistolary novel and her most popular, is published. 1761 Samuel Richardson dies. Fielding is in ill health. 1762 Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates is published with 611 subscribers. It's Socratic Discourses continues in publication to 1937. 1764 Ralph Allen dies, leaving Fielding 100 pounds. 1765 Lady Montagu dies, leaving an annuity. 1766-7 Elizabeth Montagu and Sarah Scott attempt to establish a retreat with Fielding at Hitcham. 1768 Sarah Fielding dies April 9 in Bath. |