Takes a look at issues raised not only in Smollett's novels, for which he is usually remembered, but also in other works of this prolific Scottish author.

Reproduction of the original: Tobias Smollett by Oliphant Smeaton

Before I was born, [my aunt] had gone such lengths in the way of flirting with a recruiting officer, that her reputation was a little singed. She afterwards made advances to the curate of the parish...-from "To Sir Watkin Phillips, of Jesus college, Oxon, Bath, May 6"An often overlooked but nevertheless important name in the history of the English novel, Tobias Smollett greatly influenced Dickens, with his unsentimental depiction of poverty, and was a favorite of William Makepeace Thackeray, who called The Expedition of Humphry Clinker "the most laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing began."An early example of the epistolary novel, consisting entirely of letters written between its characters, this is Smollett's last book, completed and published just before his death in 1771. Far less brutal than his earlier work, it is the comic story of Humphry Clinker, a poor lad who joins a touring party of aristocrats on their journey through city and country. Smollett's satire on the well-to-do and the fripperies that consumed their society echoes in countless writers who came after him, from Jane Austen to "Bridget Jones" with her diary.Scottish writer TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT (1721-1771) trained as a surgeon but found far more success as a novelist; he also worked as an editor and translator. Among his works are Roderick Random (1748) and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751).

Excerpt from The Works of Tobias Smollett Sxonnm was the first of the great Scottish novelists whose works have been read and admired by an English, not to mention any Continental, public and the publica tion of the first collected edition of his Novels was by a Scotchman. His Plays and Poems had, indeed, been issued in one duodecimo volume, in 1784, by Thomas Evans, bookseller in the Strand, with prefixed Memoirs of the Life and lvritings of the. Author but what have been called his Miscellaneous Works-i - his Novels, Plays, and Poems were first collected by Mr. David Ramsay, printer of the Edinburgh Evening Courant, and published in six vols. 8vo, in Edinburgh, in the year 1790. To this edition there was prefixed a very meagre Life of Smollett; it had humorous frontispieces by Row landson, and it did not contain The Adventures of an Atom. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) was a man of letters in the fullest sense. He was not only a novelist but also a playwright, poet, journalist, historian, travel writer, critic, translator, and editor. Trained as a physician, he saw the world with acutely sensitive eyes, believing that what was externally visible signified and gave definition to what could be known about the private, interior life. His fiction is therefore distinguished by its intensely visual qualities. Tobias Smollett: Novelist goes beyond all previous critical studies in its attention to these qualities in Smollett's novels, reading them as exercises of a visual imagination. Along with Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne, Smollett was one of the major British novelists of his generation. Like his kindred spirit William Hogarth, he was both chronicler and interpreter of what he saw. His episodically structured narratives reflect his vision of a harsh and unpredictable world, while his unforgettable characters display his deep understanding of the individual as moral agent. Jerry C. Beasley's book is both focused and broad in its range, crossing disciplines and genres as it seeks to demonstrate intersections between the graphic and verbal arts, always with an eye to how Smollett crafted his stories. Seventeen illustrations, many of them from works by Hogarth, complement the argument. This book honors Smollett as an author who wrote in an unorthodox but compelling way and makes the complexities of his narratives more accessible than they have ever been before.