A journey from this world to the next
Subtitle: and, The journal of a voyage to Lisbon
By: Henry Fielding ; edited with an introduction and notes by Ian A. Bell and Andrew Varney.
Contributors: Bell, Ian A.; Varney, Andrew.; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754.
Series: The world's classics
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 241
Subjects: Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754 -- Diaries; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754 -- Travel -- English Channel; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754 -- Travel -- Atlantic Ocean; Supernatural -- Fiction; Authors, English -- 18th century -- Diaries; Ocean travel -- History -- 18th century; English Channel -- Description and travel; Atlantic Ocean -- Description and travel
Genres: Diaries.
Other titles: Journey from this world to the next ; The journal of a voyage to Lisbon; Journal of a voyage to Lisbon.
Description: This unique double edition brings together Henry Fielding's two voyage narratives. A Journey from this World to the Next (1743) and The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1755) belong, in different ways, to the travel-writing tradition, and show Fielding standing in ironic relation to the genre.

The Journey is a powerful yet playful narrative, in which Fielding anatomizes contemporary follies with his customary vigour. Using the form of a journey through the underworld, he satirizes all claims to historical and political greatness.

The Journal, published posthumously, recounts Fielding's last adventure. Ruined in health by overwork and a punishing lifestyle, he set sail for Lisbon in 1754 with the desperate hope of recuperating in a better climate. Though incapacitated and enduring the squalor and frustrations of a long voyage, Fielding wrote with vitality and wit throughout the journey.

Vividly recording the bizarre characters he met, detailing comic and moving incidents, commenting on everything around him, his words transmit the keenness of his life rather than the imminence of his death. The introductions and notes to these lesser-known but fascinating texts illuminate their place in Fielding's work and eighteenth-century literature as a whole.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [xxxii]-xxxvii).