Sarah Fielding was born on 8 November 1710 at East Stour, a village in Dorset in the South of England. She was the fourth of seven Fielding children, six of whom survived to adulthood. Her father Edmund was a glamorous figure, a senior army officer and younger son of a younger son of the aristocracy; her mother was the daughter of Sir Henry Gould, one of England's most senior law officers. The siblings were and remained close: in adulthood Sarah lived for some time with her three sisters, and her elder brother Henry, the playwright, novelist and magistrate, was a mentor and friend to her until his death in 1754.
Part of the reason for the siblings'closeness was that when Sarah was seven years old her mother died, and within a…
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