ABSTRACT
According to Arthur Murphy, Henry Fielding claimed "that he left off writing for the stage when he ought to have begun". In 1751, a few months before the publication of Amelia, a pamphlet extolling the naturalness, originality, and comicality of Fielding's fiction started circulating in print. This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book addresses some of the crucial ways in which marriage as a subject and the marriage plot as a structure shaped the plays and novels of Henry Fielding. Fielding's transposition of the marriage plot of drama to his novels shows that in the skilful crafting of this structure, he saw a way of producing a form of entertainment that was morally edifying as well as pleasurable and innovative. Fielding was writing for an audience that was familiar with the dramatic repertoire and found relevance in the allusions to play within his fictions.
