Tom Jones

In Chapter I, the narrator preempts critics who might object to the faults and follies of his characters. He thus warns the critic "not to condemn a Character as a bad one, because it is not perfectly a good one." The narrator, claiming that he has never encountered a perfect person in conversation. Fielding was known to converse with people of all types and his knowledge of people's manner of acting and speaking reveals itself particularly in his characters' realistic dialogue.