ABSTRACT
We can be certain that contributing to her brother’s works brought Fielding little money and no fame. In order to support herself as a writer, a difficult task under the best of circumstances, she would need to write her own books. In May 1744, some twelve months after her biography of Anna Boleyn was published in the Miscellanies and twenty-seven months after her letter “From Leonora to Horatio” appeared in Joseph Andrews, Fielding’s first novel, The Adventures of David Simple, was published anonymously in London by Andrew Millar. The Advertisement that precedes the table of contents gives some indication of Fielding’s financial struggles. She refers to the “Distress in her Circumstances” and notes that the book’s success will be “the only Good Fortune she has ever known.” 1 Her words remind us of how few options were available to women in the eighteenth century and how difficult it was for an unmarried woman to earn a living. Fielding was clearly hoping that her investment of time in writing the novel would provide some relief from the poverty that defined her adult years. Yet, her good fortune was far from guaranteed. Writing for money was always a gamble, and even with a publication as successful as David Simple, Fielding would be unable to escape economic uncertainty.
