This is one of the best novels I've ever read. Tom Jones is one of the most inrtiguing protagonists ever created. He's handsome, implusive, libidinous but with a deeply held sense of honour and loyalty. Fielding spins a wonderful yarn that charts Tom's progress from rags to riches and back again. This epic tale is interspersed with charming authorial interludes often eccentric but always engaging. A cast of larger than life characters populate Tom's world; such as the humanist Mr Square and the lover of corporeal punishment the Reverend Thwackum. In a series of farcical encounters Tom travels and learns and, of course, loves. Written when the novel was truly a novel phenomena "Tom Jones" I think remains a enduring classic of comic writing and social satire.