The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling: Book 16, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The narrator complains that he’s committed himself to the structure of beginning each book with a prologue, since they take a lot of work. He curses the first author to invent prologues. He admits his prologues sometimes have little to do with the action and could be inserted into a totally different book. Still, he admits that prologues serve a purpose. They give critics a chance to warm up their insults, like musicians tuning instruments. They also give lazy readers some pages that they can easily skip, since many people like saying they’ve read books more than they like actually reading them.