Henry Fielding published The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (the novel's full title) in 1749, and it's never really gone out of style or out of print; it's the rare older novel that is enjoyed by both general readers and critics. The novel was still in its infancy when Fielding was writing, so it has a great deal of historical importance and would wield a significant influence on subsequent writers. It can be argued that Fielding helped define the novel genre, as well as gave it several important plot strands that would be used frequently. It is a coming-of-age story: a story that takes a young person and follows their physical and moral development. Dickens, for one example, used this plot multiple times, and it can seen in many of his novels and stories. Fielding also was also a key figure in developing the comic novel, although he was not the first, as Don Quixote has its share of comic elements. However, his use of the comic connected the novel with the tradition of Elizabethan and Restoration playwrights and pointed the way forward. It's a very different approach to the genre than, say, his contemporary Samuel Richardson, whose novel are very long, very dry, and very moralistic. Fielding, in fact, wrote a parody of one called Shamela. The use of comedy can be found in the novels Sterne, Austen, and Dickens, among others.

Finally, the novel offers many pleasures for the reader. It is full of plot twists, there are many colorful characters, the language is vivid and expressive and, perhaps most striking to the contemporary reader, Fielding as narrative addresses the reader, a device we associate with postmodernism. It is a novel that refreshes and rewards the attentive reader. For more on the early English novel, look at Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel.