The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume X. The Age of Johnson. II. Fielding and Smollett. § 5. His marriage. On 28 November, 1734, at St. Mary Charlcombe, near Bath, Fielding was married to Charlotte Cradock, of Salisbury, whom he appears to have been courting, by poems (afterwards published) and in other ways, since 1730 or an earlier date. In February, 1735, Charlotte Fielding’s mother died, leaving one shilling to her daughter Catherine (we think of Amelia and her sister, and their mother’s will) and the residue of her estate to Charlotte. It was probably this legacy that enabled Fielding to take his wife away from the ups and downs of an author’s life in London, to the house at East Stour, where he had spent his boyhood. Here, he seems to have lived a jolly, and rather extravagant life; it is not improbable that Booth’s experiences on his farm in Amelia are taken partly from Fielding’s own, and partly, perhaps, from those of his father. In something less than a year, he was back in London and again hard at work.   5