At a time in England when arranged marriages were commonplace, when the only respectable means of survival for aristocratic women without dowries were the ignominious positions of unpaid companions to affluent women or as governesses, Sarah Fielding (1710-68), sister of the writer and law reformer Henry Fielding, defied convention to write for pay, always in a respectable capacity. This fictional autobiography blends fact with imagination to offer a picture of Fielding's life, from her childhood