The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Reed was a friend of the author Henry Fielding who had had great success with the novel, "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling". Reed worked on an adaption of the story as a comic opera, a project that Fielding encouraged. The drama opened on 14 January 1769 at Covent Garden, with Shuter as Western and Mattocks as the hero, and was repeated thirteen times. Fielding praised Reed's version publicly.