Understanding the Context of a Text

In my 18th Century British Literature class, my professor puts more focus on what is going on around the making of the text and less on the specifics of the text. We recently read David Simple by Sarah Fielding and she had us read the first portion without telling us anything about the context of when it was written. For me, nothing seemed strange. It is just a story about a man searching for a true friend and running into bad characters over and over (and over) again. When we got to class the next day, she had us read a short advertisement written on the novel by Sarah's older brother, Henry Fielding (who is most famous for writing Tom Jones). The advertisement completely bashes Sarah and her style of writing. We then went into a discussion as to why Henry does this. After hearing about all the context behind Sarah life, the story had extremely more meaning for me, and I even went back and reread the first part over again. Although it may seem like a history lesson, its important to share the context of a book with our students. You never know, they might be more interested in that than the book itself.