The Life of Mr Jonathan Wild The Great Author:Henry Fielding The outrages that Jonathan Wild commits against the simeple, virtuous Heartfree epitomize one of the most villainous but memorably comic figures in literature. Wild is methodically evil: his thefts and vices, violence and grand deceptions, are merely steppingstones in his progess toward "greatness." In writing about this sublime blackguard, He... more »nry Fielding drew on his knowledge of London's Gin Lane, where he served as magistrate, on legends surrounding an actual archcriminal, and on the figure of the King's minister, Sir Robert Walpole, that nemisis whom Pope, Swift, and Gay lampooned in their greatest works. Jonathan Wild is perhaps the Enlightenment's most ironic pageant of corruption--the book in which Fielding's dormant theme that "greatness" and "goodness" have no part in each other gleams with polished bitterness and gallows humor.« less