The Works of Tobias Smollett, in Six Volumes: Volume I. The Adventures or Roderick Random; Volume II: The Adventures of Roderick Random, Part II; The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves; Volume III: The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Part I; Volume IV: The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Part II; Volume V: The Adventures of Count Fathom; Volume VI: The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Edition de Luxe)
Boston/New York: C.T. Brainard, 1902. Limited Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good / No Jacket. Item #2330848
Limited edition, #400 of 1000. All volumes: Spine lightly rubbed and soiled.
Six volume set. Top edge gilt. Engraved plates. Includes: Volume I. The Adventures or Roderick Random; Volume II: The Adventures of Roderick Random, Part II; The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves; Volume III: The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Part I; Volume IV: The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Part II; Volume V: The Adventures of Count Fathom; Volume VI: The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tobias Smollett, in full Tobias George Smollett, (baptized March 19, 1721, Cardross, Dumbartonshire, Scot.—died Sept. 17, 1771, near Livorno, Tuscany [Italy]), Scottish satirical novelist, best known for his picaresque novels The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and his epistolary novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771). Smollett came of a family of lawyers and soldiers, Whig in politics and Presbyterian in religion. In 1727 or 1728 he entered Dumbarton grammar school, proceeding from there to the University of Glasgow and apprenticeship to William Stirling and John Gordon, surgeons of that city. His first biographer states that he “attended the anatomical and medical lectures,” and, if his first novel, Roderick Random, may be taken as evidence, he also studied Greek, mathematics, moral and natural philosophy, logic, and belles lettres. He left the university in 1739 without a degree and went to London, taking with him his play The Regicide. A year later he was commissioned surgeon's second mate in the Royal Navy and appointed to HMS Chichester, which reached Port Royal, Jam., on Jan. 10, 1741. It is probable that Smollett saw action in the naval bombardment of Cartagena (now in Colombia). The expedition was disastrous; he would later describe its horrors in Roderick Random. In Jamaica he met and was betrothed to—and perhaps there married—an heiress, Anne Lassells. He returned to London alone to set up as a surgeon on Downing Street, Westminster, his wife joining him in 1747. He failed to secure a production of The Regicide, but in 1746, after the defeat of the Jacobite rebels at Culloden, he wrote his most famous poem, “The Tears of Scotland.” He had by now moved to cheaper accommodations in Chapel Street, Mayfair, no doubt because, despite litigation, he had managed to recover only a fraction of his wife's considerable dowry, which was invested in land and slaves. It was in Chapel Street that he wrote Advice and Reproof, verse satires in the manner of the Roman poet Juvenal.In 1748 Smollett published his novel The Adventures of Roderick Random, in part a graphic account of British naval life at the time, and also translated the great picaresque romance Gil Blas from the French of Alain-René Lesage. In 1750 he obtained the degree of M.D. from Marischal College, Aberdeen. Later in the year he was in Paris, searching out material for The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. This work contains a great comic figure in Hawser Trunnion, a retired naval officer who, though living on dry land, insists on behaving as though he were still on the quarterdeck of one of his majesty's ships at sea. - Britannica
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