Oxford English Novels
4 total works
This work brings to life Tobias Smollett's fourth novel, ""The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves"". This version includes more accurate text and critical information. It also includes an examination of ""Sir Launcelot Greaves"", the first illustrated serial novel, in relation to the engravings by Anthony Walker. The most attractive of his heroes, Sir Launcelot is virtuous and strange, and he is surrounded by a Smollettian menagerie whose various jargons are part of this novel's linguistic virtuosity and satire. Sir Launcelot's character is an English naturalization of Quixote. Although Sir Launcelot is not the object of Smollett's satire, an idealistic madness is central to both characters. In Smollett's work, the theme of madness is integral to the relationship between self and society as the work ponders both the constitution of madness and the alternatives to revenge.
The hero of "Ferdinand Count Fathom" (1753) is a monster of treachery and fraud. Fate and coincidence play a large part in his picaresque progress through England and Europe, and much of the narrative is written in a mock-heroic style. This critical study explains the literary and historical background of the 18th-century world in which the book was written.
Roderick is combative, often violent, but capable of great affection and generosity. His father had been disinherited and has left Scotland leaving his son penniless. After a brief apprenticeship to a surgeon, the innocent Roderick travels to London where he encounters various rogues.