It was Fielding's wish to make readers laugh themselves out of their folly and vice with this novel. He is a moralist, but without indignation. Tom Jones is a funny tale of a man's battle with virtue and vice, good and evil. Cliffs Notes gives you the basics on Tom Jones including such features as information about the author, social and historical backgrounds, structure and tradition of literary genres, facts about the characters, critical analyses, review questions, glossaries of unfamiliar terms, foreign phrases and literary allusions, maps, genealogies, and a bibliography to help you locate more data for essays, oral reports, and term papers.