ABSTRACT
In November 1746, Henry Fielding anonymously published a sixpenny pamphlet entitled The Female Husband. Little critical attention has been paid to The Female Husband, particularly by Fielding scholars. Being the story of a female transvestite, The Female Husband recalls the well-known criminal biography of another Mary: Mary Frith, or Moll Cutpurse, a "famous Master-thief and an Ugly, who dressed like a Man, and died in 1663". The most conspicuous target in the final episode of The Female Husband is the brutal conduct of the irrational element of society epitomized in "the mob". The Female Husband moves between the conventions of criminal biography and the types of marriage plot. Fielding's The Female Husband, by contrast, explicitly rejects both generic identification and closure. Fielding's interest in the cross-dressing adventures of Mary Hamilton also looks back on the author's first literary passion in significant ways.
