The Adventures of Roderick Random, Volume 1

by Tobias Smollett

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.Western literary study flows out of eighteenth-century works by Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, Denis Diderot, Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and others. Experience the birth of the modern novel, or compare the development of language using dictionaries and grammar discourses. ++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++<sourceLibrary>National Library of Scotland<ESTCID>T208066<Notes><imprintFull>London: printed for J. Sibbald, and sold by T. Kay, 1793. <collation>2v., plates; 8

244 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1748

About the author

Tobias George Smollett was born in Dalquhurn, now part of Renton, Scotland, to a prosperous family and educated at the University of Glasgow, where he studied to be a physician. Later he joined the British Royal Navy as a surgeon's mate. He was present at the disastrous battle against the Spanish at Cartagena in 1741.

He married a British woman named Anne " Nancy" Lascelles, in Jamaica, 1747,and settled in England. In London, as a writer, he became successful. The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), a picaresque novel - like most of his books - made him a well known author. It was followed by The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle in 1751. But the failure of The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753) caused financial difficulties for him. Publishing The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1762) didn't help.

Writing poems, plays, travel and history books, essays, satires, doing translations and even becoming a literary critic and magazine editor, Dr. Smollett struggled all his short life against poverty, he traveled to Italy, to regain his health, but died of tuberculosis near Livorno, in 1771. Ironically finishing his masterpiece, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, a few months before his death.

Charles Dickens was a great admirer of Tobias Smollett, even visiting his grave site.

Reviews

[Neil McKinlay · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Adventures of Roderick Random is a great read! Written in the mid-1700s by a man from the same town in Scotland in which I grew up (Vale of Leven). Smollett has a beautifully descriptive and poetic turn of phrase, is witty, and has an acute eye for human foibles and our fallen disposition. This is Stevenson's Treasure Island and Scott's Rob Roy rolled into one! This novel is surprisingly modern, not in language (which nevertheless is exquisite), but in its vivid description of human nature when faced with feast or famine. Loved it!