I love stories. I think everyone does. Folks see life as a collection of narratives. Even so, I’ve experienced evidence that I’m more into them than most.

Like when I took the post-graduate seminar in early lit, and consumed the first two books of The Faerie Queen with twelve other scholars. Everyone else was so attentive to the layers of allegory in the work that I was the only reader following the plot.

Or when I read Tom Jones, and told my professor about the mistake I found, and learned as far as I could tell that (1) nobody had noticed it in the 250 years since the book had first been published and (2) my professor didn’t seem to take me seriously.

I paid attention to that book. I loved the story. I appreciated the way the author spoke to the reader. And when I got into the subject of misanthropy, and it grew to become my bachelor’s thesis, I compared the old man on the hill in that book to Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens to the most famous disdainer of all, Lemuel Gulliver.

I just reread Tom Jones. Rereading old books is part of my response to the current political surreality. Not only does the literature encourage my brain to slow down and take in phrases of all proportions; not only does it give me a journey of some length and depth into which I can immerse myself; but it reminds me that people were just as fucked up then as now.

I reread and this time I bookmarked the passages that bothered me 50 years ago. This time I’ll note them. I have googled the subject and it appears no one else has noted the discrepancy yet.

It’s about Mrs Miller. She’s the lady in London who puts Tom up and befriends him. There’s no question that she is good. Although Fielding often speaks with his tongue in his cheek and sarcasm in his heart, it’s clear that he approves of Mrs Miller almost as much as he esteems his heroine Sophia.

Mrs Miller is the widow of a clergyman. She has two daughters. When she’s first described (in Chapter V of Book XIII), these words appear:

“Mr. Jones, then, had often heard Mr. Allworthy mention the gentlewoman at whose house he used to lodge when he was in town. This person, who, as Jones likewise knew, lived in Bond Street, was the widow of a clergyman, and was left by him, at his decease, in possession of two daughters, and of a complete set of manuscript sermons.

Of these two daughters, Nancy, the elder, was now arrived at the age of seventeen, and Betty, the younger, at that of ten.”

It’s clear from other words in the book that Mr Allworthy has approved of and provided support for Mrs Miller. Squire Allworthy is generally a good judge of people. Only in the case of Tom and his half-brother is he mistaken, and in those characters, Allworthy is thoroughly imposed upon by evil actors. Regarding Mrs Miller, and a few pages later:

“…the widow had all the charms which can adorn a woman near fifty. As she was one of the most innocent creatures in the world, so she was one of the most cheerful. She never thought, nor spoke, nor wished any ill, and had constantly that desire of pleasing, which may be called the happiest of all desires in this, that it scarce ever fails of attaining its ends when not disgraced by affectation. In short, though her power was very small, she was in her heart one of the warmest friends. She had been a most affectionate wife, and was a most fond and tender mother. As our history doth not, like a newspaper, give great characters to people who never were heard of before, nor will ever be heard of again, the reader may hence conclude that this excellent woman will hereafter appear to be of some importance in our history.”

Some pages pass. In the next Book (XIV), near the beginning of Chapter V (A Short Account Of The History Of Mrs Miller), the woman speaks of her past:

“Five years did I live in a state of perfect happiness with that best of men, till at last – Oh! cruel! cruel fortune, that ever separated us, that deprived me of the kindest of husbands and my poor girls of the tenderest parent. – Oh, my poor girls! you never knew the blessing which ye lost.”

You do the math. I’ve tried. Even if I make the first-born come early or stretch the second pregnancy out as long as conceivable, there’s no way to have two children, seven years or even six and a bit apart, during a five-year marriage.

It’s a clear mistake. No one will accept an argument that Mrs Miller had a child out of wedlock or that Fielding was sarcastic in his portrayal of her. The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling was the first novel, as we think of novels, written in English. It’s long. Apparently the author lost track of a fact in the fifty pages between the Chapters V in Books XIII and XIV.

I’m just noting what others haven’t. The error doesn’t appear to be mentioned on the Internet. More proof that everything isn’t.