Tobias Smollett
Tobias Smollett | |
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Born | Tobias George Smollett 19 March 1721 Dalquhurn (now part of Renton), Scotland |
Died | 17 September 1771 Livorno, Italy |
(aged 50)
Occupation | Author, poet, surgeon |
Nationality | Scottish |
Period | 1748–71 |
Genre | Picaresque, satire |
Tobias George Smollett (19 March 1721 – 17 September 1771) was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751), which influenced later novelists such as Charles Dickens. His novels were amended liberally by printers; a definitive edition of each of his works was edited by Dr. O. M. Brack, Jr. to correct variants.
Contents
Life[edit]
Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of Renton, in present-day West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. He was the fourth son of Archibald Smollett of Bonhill, a judge and land-owner who died about 1726, and Barbara Cunningham, who died about 1766. He was educated at the University of Glasgow, where he qualified as a surgeon; it has been asserted by some biographers that he then proceeded to the University of Edinburgh but left without taking a degree. His career in medicine came second to his literary ambitions; in 1739 he went to London to seek his fortune as a dramatist. Unsuccessful, he obtained a commission as a naval surgeon on HMS Chichester and travelled to Jamaica, where he settled down for several years. In 1742 he served as a surgeon during the disastrous campaign to capture Cartagena. On his return, he set up practice in Downing Street and married a wealthy Jamaican heiress, Anne "Nancy" Lascelles (1721–1791), in 1747. She was a daughter of William Lascelles. They had one child, a daughter Elizabeth, who died aged 15 years about 1762. He had a brother, Capt. James Smollet, and a sister, Jean Smollett, who married Alexander Telfair of Symington, Ayrshire. Jean succeeded to Bonhill after the death of her cousin-german, Mr. Commissary Smollett, and resumed her maiden name of Smollett in 1780. They lived in St. John Street off Canongate, Edinburgh and had a son who was in the Military.
His first published work was a poem about the Battle of Culloden entitled "The Tears of Scotland", but it was The Adventures of Roderick Random which made his name, his poetry was described as 'delicate, sweet and murmurs as a stream'.[1] The Adventures of Roderick Random was modelled on Le Sage's Gil Blas, and was published in 1748. Smollett followed it up by finally getting his tragedy, The Regicide, published, though it was never performed. In 1750, Smollett took his MD degree in Aberdeen, and also travelled to France, where he obtained material for his second novel, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, another big success. Having lived for a short time in Bath, he returned to London and published The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom in 1753. He was now recognised as a leading literary figure, whose novels were published by the prominent London bookseller Andrew Millar.[2] Smollett became associated with the likes of David Garrick, Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Johnson, whom he famously nicknamed "that Great Cham of literature".[1] In 1755 he published a translation of Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote, which he revised in 1761. In 1756, he became editor of The Critical Review.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20170103030316im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Tobias_Smollet_%28Nathaniel_Dance-Holland%29.jpg/220px-Tobias_Smollet_%28Nathaniel_Dance-Holland%29.jpg)
Smollett then began what he regarded as his major work, A Complete History of England, from 1757 to 1765. During this period he served a short prison sentence for libel, and produced another novel, The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1760). Having suffered the loss of a daughter, he went abroad with his wife, and the result was Travels through France and Italy (1766). He also wrote The History and Adventures of an Atom (1769), which gave his view of British politics during the Seven Years' War under the guise of a tale from ancient Japan.
He also re-visited Scotland and this visit helped inspire his last novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), published in the year of his death. He had for some time been ailing from an intestinal disorder, and had sought a cure at Bath and eventually retired to Italy, where he is buried in the old English cemetery in Livorno, Italy.
Monuments[edit]
There is a monument to his memory beside Renton Primary School, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on which there is a Latin inscription composed by Dr. Johnson. The area around the monument was improved in 2002, with an explanatory plaque. After his death in Italy in 1771 his cousin Jane Smollett had the monument built in Renton in 1774. It comprises a tall Tuscan column topped by an urn. On the plinth is a Latin inscription written by Professor George Stuart of Edinburgh, John Ramsay of Ochtertyre and Dr Samuel Johnson. It is a category A listed building.[3]
There is also a plaque to his temporary residence in Edinburgh just off the Royal Mile at the head of St John's Street. This states that he resided here in the house of his sister, Mrs. Telfer, for the summer of 1766. A second plaque (dating the building at 1758, making it relatively new at that time) states that he "stayed here occasionally" implying more than one visit, which may well be true if it was the house of his sister.
Smollett is one of the sixteen Scottish writers and poets depicted on the lower section of the Scott Monument on Princes Street in Edinburgh. He appears on the far left side of the east face.
There is a street in Nice, Alpes Maritimes France named after him.
References in literature[edit]
In George Eliot's Middlemarch, Mr. Brooke says to Mr. Casaubon: "Or get Dorothea to read you light things, Smollett – Roderick Random, Humphrey Clinker. They are a little broad, but she may read anything now she's married, you know. I remember they made me laugh uncommonly — there's a droll bit about a postilion's breeches."
In W. M. Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Rebecca Sharp and Miss Rose Crawley read Humphrey Clinker: "Once, when Mr. Crawley asked what the young people were reading, the governess replied "Smollett." "Oh, Smollett," said Mr. Crawley, quite satisfied. "His history is more dull, but by no means so dangerous as that of Mr. Hume. It is history you are reading?" "Yes," said Miss Rose; without, however, adding that it was the history of Mr. Humphrey Clinker."
Charles Dickens's David Copperfield mentions its titular young hero to count Smollett's works as among his favourites as a child.
John Bellairs referenced Smollett's works in his Johnny Dixon series, wherein Professor Roderick Random Childermass reveals that his late father Marcus, an English professor, had named all of his sons after characters in Smollett's works: Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, and even "Ferdinand Count Fathom", who usually signed his name F. C. F. Childermass.
George Orwell praised him as "Scotland's best novelist".
In Hugh Walpole's "Fortitude", the protagonist Peter references "Peregrine Pickle" as a text that inspires him to document his own memoirs.
Bibliography[edit]
- 1746: Advice (poetry)[4]
- 1747: Reproof: A satire, a sequel to Advice (poetry)[4]
- 1748: Translator, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, published anonymously (dated, incorrectly, "1749"), translated from the original L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane by Alain-Rene Le Sage[4]
- 1748: The Adventures of Roderick Random, published anonymously[4]
- 1749: The Regicide; or, James the First, of Scotland: A tragedy (play)[4]
- 1751: The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, published anonymously[4]
- 1753: The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom[4]
- 1755: Translator, The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote, translated from the original Spanish of Cervantes[4]. Vol. 1: [2]. Vol. 2: [3].
- 1756: A Compendium of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages, published anonymously; nonfiction[4]
- 1756: Editor and one of the writers, The Critical Review; or, Annals of Literature, a periodical published semi-annually from this year until 1790[4]
- 1757–1758: A Complete History of England by David Hume, in four volumes, with Smollett adding his own Continuation of the History of England, published from 1760–1765, as an additional volume; nonfiction[4]
- 1757: The Reprisal; or, The Tars of Old England: A comedy, anonymously published; a play performed on 22 January[4]
- 1760: The British Magazine, a periodical published in eight volumes; Volumes 1 and 2 include the first publication of Launcelot Greaves (see below)[4]
- 1761–1765: The Works of Voltaire, an English translation of Voltaire in thirty-five volumes, which Smollett edited with Thomas Francklin[5]
- 1762: The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, first edition as a book; originally serialised in The British Magazine from January 1760 to December 1761 (see above)[4]
- 1766: Travels through France and Italy, nonfiction[4]
- 1768–1769: The Present State of all Nations, published in eight volumes; nonfiction[4]
- 1769: The History and Adventures of an Atom[4]
- 1771: The Expedition of Humphry Clinker[4]
Radio[edit]
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker was made into a radio series, with three one-hour episodes, dramatised by Yvonne Antrobus, starring Stuart McLoughlin as Clinker and Nigel Anthony as Mathew Bramble.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Gilfillan, George , dissertation in The Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray and Smollet 1855, kindle ebook 1855 ASIN B004TQHGGE ,
- ^ "Andrew Millar Project, University of Edinburgh.". www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 2016-06-03.
- ^ "RENTON, MAIN STREET, SMOLLETT MONUMENT". Historic Environment Scotland.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Cox, Michael, editor, The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-860634-6
- ^ Kenneth Simpson, Smollett, Tobias George (1721–1771), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, January 2008, accessed 13 December 2009
- Lewis, Jeremy (Cape, 2003) Tobias Smollett
- George Rousseau (1982). Tobias Smollett: Essays of Two Decades (Edinburgh: T&T Clark).
- George Rousseau (2004). Nervous Acts: Essays on Literature, Culture and Sensibility. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-3454-1 (Paperback) ISBN 1-4039-3453-3 (Hardcover)
External links[edit]
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Wikiquote has quotations related to: Tobias Smollett |
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- Tobias Smollett at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
- Works by Tobias Smollett at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Tobias Smollett at Internet Archive
- Works by Tobias Smollett at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Online editions of his works
- Smollett Monument, including translation of the inscription
- 1721 births
- 1771 deaths
- 18th-century deaths from tuberculosis
- People from West Dunbartonshire
- Infectious disease deaths in Italy
- Spanish–English translators
- Maritime writers
- 18th-century Scottish writers
- 18th-century Scottish novelists
- Scottish translators
- 18th-century British poets
- Scottish poets
- 18th-century Scottish medical doctors
- Scottish surgeons
- Alumni of the University of Glasgow
- British expatriates in Jamaica
- Scottish historians
- Historians of England
- Scottish travel writers
- Scottish political writers
- People of the Scottish Enlightenment