Jonathan Wild, by Henry Fielding

Table of Contents

Book I

1. Shewing the Wholesome Uses Drawn from Recording the Achievements of Those Wonderful Productions of Nature Called Great Men.
2. Giving an Account of as Many of Our Hero’s Ancestors as Can Be Gathered Out of the Rubbish of Antiquity, which Hath Been Carefully Sifted for that Purpose.
3. The Birth, Parentage, and Education of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great.
4. Mr. Wild’s First Entrance into the World. His Acquaintance with Count La Ruse.
5. A Dialogue Between Young Master Wild and Count La Ruse, Which, Having Extended to the Rejoinder, had a Very Quiet, Easy, And Natural Conclusion.
6. Further Conferences Between the Count and Master Wild, with Other Matters of the Great Kind.
7. Master Wild Sets Out on His Travels, and Returns Home Again. A Very Short Chapter, Containing Infinitely More Time and Less Matter than Any Other in the Whole Story.
8. An Adventure where Wild, in the Division of the Booty, Exhibits an Astonishing Instance of Greatness.
9. Wild Pays a Visit to Miss Letitia Snap. A Description of that Lovely Young Creature, and the Successless Issue of Mr. Wild’s Addresses.
10. A Discovery of Some Matters Concerning the Chaste Laetitia which Must Wonderfully Surprise, and Perhaps Affect, Our Reader.
11. Containing as Notable Instances of Human Greatness as are to Be Met with in Ancient or Modern History. Concluding with Some Wholesome Hints to the Gay Part of Mankind.
12. Other Particulars Relating to Miss Tishy, which Perhaps May Not Greatly Surprise After the Former. The Description of a Very Fine Gentleman. And a Dialogue Between Wild and the Count, in which Public Virtue is Just Hinted At, With, Etc.
13. A Chapter of which We are Extremely Vain, and which Indeed We Look on as Our Chef-D’oeuvre; Containing a Wonderful Story Concerning the Devil, and as Nice a Scene of Honour as Ever Happened.
14. In which the History of Greatness is Continued.

Book II

1. Characters of Silly People, with the Proper Uses for which Such are Designed.
2. Great Examples of Greatness in Wild, Shewn as Well by His Behaviour to Bagshot as in a Scheme Laid, First, to Impose on Heartfree by Means of the Count, and then to Cheat the Count of the Booty.
3. Containing Scenes of Softness, Love, and Honour All in the Great Stile.
4. In which Wild, After Many Fruitless Endeavours to Discover His Friend, Moralises on His Misfortune in a Speech, which May Be of Use (If Rightly Understood) To Some Other Considerable Speech-Makers.
5. Containing Many Surprising Adventures, which Our Hero, with Great Greatness, Achieved.
6. Of Hats.
7. Shewing the Consequence which Attended Heartfree’s Adventures with Wild; All Natural and Common Enough to Little Wretches Who Deal with Great Men; Together with Some Precedents of Letters, Being the Different Methods of Answering a Dun.
8. In which Our Hero Carries Greatness to an Immoderate Height.
9. More Greatness in Wild. A Low Scene Between Mrs. Heartfree and Her Children, and a Scheme of Our Hero Worthy the Highest Admiration, and Even Astonishment.
10. Sea-Adventures Very New and Surprising.
11. The Great and Wonderful Behaviour of Our Hero in the Boat.
12. The Strange and Yet Natural Escape of Our Hero.
13. The Conclusion of the Boat Adventure, and the End of the Second Book.

Book III

1. The Low and Pitiful Behaviour of Heartfree; and the Foolish Conduct of His Apprentice.
2. A Soliloquy of Heartfree’s, Full of Low and Base Ideas, Without a Syllable of Greatness.
3. Wherein Our Hero Proceeds in the Road to Greatness.
4. In which a Young Hero, of Wonderful Good Promise, Makes His First Appearance, with Many Other Great Matters.
5. More and More Greatness, Unparalleled in History or Romance.
6. The Event of Fireblood’s Adventure; and a Threat of Marriage, which Might have Been Concluded Either at Smithfield or St. James’s.
7. Matters Preliminary to the Marriage Between Mr. Jonathan Wild and the Chaste Laetitia.
8. A Dialogue Matrimonial, which Passed Between Jonathan Wild, Esq., and Laetitia His Wife, on the Morning of the Day Fortnight on which His Nuptials Were Celebrated; which Concluded More Amicably than Those Debates Generally Do.
9. Observations on the Foregoing Dialogue, Together with a Base Design on Our Hero, which Must Be Detested by Every Lover of Greatness.
10. Mr. Wild with Unprecedented Generosity Visits His Friend Heartfree, and the Ungrateful Reception he Met with.
11. A Scheme So Deeply Laid, that it Shames All the Politics of this Our Age; with Digression and Subdigression.
12. New Instances of Friendly’s Folly, Etc.
13. Something Concerning Fireblood which Will Surprize; and Somewhat Touching One of the Miss Snaps, which Will Greatly Concern the Reader.
14. In which Our Hero Makes a Speech Well Worthy to Be Celebrated; and the Behaviour of One of the Gang, Perhaps More Unnatural than Any Other Part of this History.

Book IV

1. Sentiment of the Ordinary’s, Worthy to Be Written in Letters of Gold; a Very Extraordinary Instance of Folly in Friendly, And a Dreadful Accident which Befel Our Hero.
2. A Short Hint Concerning Popular Ingratitude. Mr. Wild’s Arrival in the Castle, with Other Occurrences to Be Found in No Other History.
3. Curious Anecdotes Relating to the History of Newgate.
4. The Dead-Warrant Arrives for Heartfree; on which Occasion Wild Betrays Some Human Weakness.
5. Containing Various Matters.
6. In which the Foregoing Happy Incident is Accounted for.
7. Mrs. Heartfree Relates Her Adventures.
8. In which Mrs. Heartfree Continues the Relation of Her Adventures.
9. Containing Incidents Very Surprizing.
10. A Horrible Uproar in the Gate.
11. The Conclusion of Mrs. Heartfree’s Adventures.
12. The History Returns to the Contemplation of Greatness.
13. A Dialogue Between the Ordinary of Newgate and Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great; in which the Subjects of Death, Immortality, And Other Grave Matters, are Very Learnedly Handled by the Former.
14. Wild Proceeds to the Highest Consummation of Human Greatness.
15. The Character of Our Hero, and the Conclusion of this History.