A Journey from This World to the Next

This unique double edition brings together Henry Fielding's two voyage narratives. A Journey from this World to the Next (1743) and The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1755) belong, in different ways, to the travel-writing tradition, and show Fielding standing in ironic relation to the genre. The Journey is a powerful yet playful narrative, in which Fielding anatomizes contemporary follies with his customary vigour. Using the form of a journey through the underworld, he satirizes all claims to historical and political greatness. The Journal, published posthumously, recounts Fielding's last adventure. Ruined in health by overwork and a punishing lifestyle, he set sail for Lisbon in 1754 with the desperate hope of recuperating in a better climate. Though incapacitated and enduring the squalor and frustrations of a long voyage, Fielding wrote with vitality and wit throughout the journey. Vividly recording the bizarre characters he met, detailing comic and moving incidents, commenting on everything around him, his words transmit the keenness of his life rather than the imminence of his death. The introductions and notes to these lesser-known but fascinating texts illuminate their place in Fielding's work and eighteenth-century literature as a whole.