The Review of English Studies Advance Access originally published online on March 6, 2007
The Review of English Studies 2008 59(238):86-117; doi:10.1093/res/hgl158
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press 2007; all rights reserved
Did Fielding Write for The Craftsman?
University of Washington, Seattle
 |
Abstract |
|---|
Martin C. Battestin's 1989 book attributing essays from The Craftsman to Henry Fielding on internal evidence appears to be widely accepted, with the essays increasingly incorporated into scholarship on Fielding. This article shows the reasons for rejecting the attributions. It gives an evaluation of Battestin's method, with representative examples, indicating also where important contrary evidence has been ignored. The system of letter-designations marking authorship of reprinted Craftsman papers is freshly analysed, with the letter ‘A’ shown to be an alternate designation for the editor Nicholas Amhurst. Battestin's treatment of parallels of style and allusion as evidence is deficient, in that parallels claimed as significantly distinctive repeatedly turn out to be part of the shared idiom of contemporary discourse and useless as markers of individual authorship. Nor do the partisan political themes of the attributed essays comport with the interests of Fielding's known work. Certain unrecognised parallels with writings by Amhurst have virtually probative quality, and the case for his authorship of No. 469 is exhibited at length. Fielding had nothing to do with the Craftsman. Many of the essays in question are undoubtedly by Amhurst, and for those which may not be there are far more plausible candidates than Fielding.