thumb|270px|Tobias Smollett as depicted on the [[Scott Monument]]

Tobias George Smollett (bapt. 19 March 1721 – 17 September 1771) was a Scottish writer and surgeon. He was best known for writing picaresque novels such as The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), which influenced later generations of British novelists, including Charles Dickens. His novels were liberally altered by contemporary printers; an authoritative edition of each was edited by Dr O. M. Brack Jr and others.

Early life and family

Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of Renton in present-day West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, and baptised on 19 March 1721 (his birth date is estimated as 3 days previously). on the River Leven, who died about 1726, when Smollett was just five years old. His mother Barbara Smollett née Cunningham brought the family up there, until she died about 1766. He had a brother, Captain James Smollett, and a sister, Jean Smollett, who married Alexander Telfair of Symington, Ayrshire. Jean succeeded to Bonhill after the death of her cousin-german, Sir James Smollett, and resumed her maiden name of Smollett in 1780. They lived in St John Street off the Canongate, and had a son who was in the military.

Education and career

Smollett was educated at Dumbarton Grammar School and the University of Glasgow, where he studied medicine and eventually qualified as a surgeon. The Adventures of Roderick Random was modelled on Le Sage's Gil Blas and despite its scandalous content covering 'snobbery, prostitution, debt and hinting at homosexuality', it was published Smollett became considered as a 'man of letters'

In 1755 he published an English translation of Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote, which he revised in 1761. In 1756, he became briefly editor of the 58-volume Universal History, and editor of The Critical Review, from which later he had a successful libel case brought against him by Admiral Sir Charles Knowles, and a three-month prison sentence, and fine of £100.

A further visit to Scotland helped to inspire his last novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), published in the year of his death. He had for some time been suffering from an intestinal disorder. Having sought a cure at Bath, he retired to Italy, where he died in September 1771 and was buried in the Old English Cemetery, Livorno.

thumb|Tobias Smollett Monument in [[Renton, West Dunbartonshire]]

There is also a plaque at his temporary residence in Edinburgh, just off the Royal Mile at the head of St John's Street, where his wife lived after his death until at least 1785. This states that he resided there 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.

Smollett is one of the 16 Scottish writers and poets depicted on the lower section of the Scott Monument in Princes Street, Edinburgh. He appears on the far left side of the east face.

References in literature

Laurence Sterne, in his A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, refers to Smollett under the nickname of Smelfungus, due to the snarling abuse Smollett heaped on the institutions and customs of the countries he visited and described in his Travels Through France and Italy.

Mr Brooke in George Eliot's Middlemarch says to Mr Casaubon: "Or get Dorothea to read you light things, Smollett – Roderick Random, Humphry 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 postillion's breeches."

In W. M. Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair, Rebecca Sharp and Miss Rose Crawley read Humphry 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. Humphry Clinker."

Charles Dickens's David Copperfield mentions that his young protagonist counted Smollett's works among his favourites as a child.

John Bellairs referenced Smollett's works in his Johnny Dixon series, where Professor Roderick Random Childermass reveals that his late father Marcus, an English professor, had named all his sons after characters in Smollett's works: Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphry 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 fifth novel Fortitude, the protagonist Peter refers to Peregrine Pickle as a text that inspired him to document his own memoirs.

Smollett is referenced in Don Winslow's detective yarn "A Cool Breeze On The Underground,"

Bibliography

Poetry

  • 1746: Advice
  • 1747: Reproof: A satire, a sequel to Advice Vol. 2:. - considered to be a revision of the translation by Charles Jervas

French

  • 1776 (posthumously published) The Adventures of Telemachus, the Son of Ulysses - a translation of Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699) by François Fénelon
  • 1748: 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-René Le Sage

Novels

  • 1748: The Adventures of Roderick Random, published anonymously Smollett followed this with Continuation of the Complete History of England (1760–1765, five volumes).
  • 1766: Travels through France and Italy