Henry Fielding's The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great is a 1743 satiric novel published in his Miscellanies that tells the story of Jonathan Wild, an 18th-century London crime boss. Considered a masterpiece of satire and a classic example of the picaresque novel, it uses the criminal figure of Wild to mock and criticize various aspects of English society, including the corrupt political elite and the pursuit of power and wealth.