Name: Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon
Author: Henry Fielding
ISBN: 9780140434873

About This Book

The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon is the last work by Henry Fielding (1707–1754), the author of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, and one of the founders of the English novel. Written during the summer of 1754 as a travel diary, it records Fielding's voyage from England to Lisbon aboard the Queen of Portugal, undertaken in desperate hope that the warmer climate might arrest his rapidly declining health. He was suffering from gout, dropsy, and asthma, and by his own account could barely walk.

The journal blends day-by-day observations of shipboard life — delays at anchor, encounters with difficult captains and customs officials, rough seas — with broader reflections on politics, justice, and human nature. Fielding's characteristic wit and irony survive intact even as the physical evidence of his suffering pervades the text. He arrived in Lisbon after six arduous weeks, only to die there on 8 October 1754, two months later. The diary was published posthumously in January 1755 in two differing editions.

The Journal is valued both as literature and as a document of eighteenth-century seafaring. It is the most personal of Fielding's writings — a portrait of a great comic novelist confronting mortality with humor, stoicism, and unflinching honesty. The work is in the public domain and freely available through Project Gutenberg.

About the Author

Henry Fielding

1707 – 1754

Henry Fielding (1707–1754) was an English novelist and playwright whose sharp wit and sprawling narratives helped define the modern novel. Born into a well-connected Somerset family, he studied at Eton and the University of Leiden before launching a career in London theatre. His satirical plays drew the ire of the government, prompting the Licensing Act of 1737 that effectively ended his stage career. Fielding then turned to prose fiction, producing the mock-heroic Joseph Andrews (1742) and the panoramic masterpiece Tom Jones (1749). He also practised law, serving as a magistrate for Westminster and Middlesex, where he co-founded the Bow Street Runners, an early form of professional policing. Plagued by gout and declining health, Fielding sailed to Lisbon seeking warmer air but died there at forty-seven, leaving behind works that combined comedy, social criticism, and a generous vision of human nature.

Publication Details

First Published	1755
Publisher	Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
Pages	187
ISBN	9780140434873
Language	English
Genre	Fiction, Biography, Nautical, Enlightenment
Copyright	Public Domain
Open Library	View editions
Collection	Munsey's Classic & Rare Books