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The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
Offers a picture of eighteenth-century society. This story describes Squire Bramble's tour of the Britain of George III.
414 pages, Paperback
First published June 17, 1771
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4896 people want to read
About the author
Tobias Smollett
1,694 books96 followersTobias 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.
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.
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August 18, 2025
If you liked The Pickwick Papers you'll probably enjoy this too , since Charles Dickens first novel and bestseller made his career. The writer was a huge fan of Dr. Tobias Smollett when young and the influence is notable since having read both picaresque novels and enormously fond of each . ( The Expedition of ) Humphry Clinker written in 1771 the author's epistolary masterpiece but sadly the last. For modern bookworms looking at a bunch of letters seems weird, however they give insight to every character's emotion, belief, intention... what they really desire. A superior method I believe than a stream of consciousness where the bathwater and the pearls land entangled. Squire Matthew Bramble gout-ridden, cantankerous skeptic, a wealthy landowner, needs adventure, new experiences, unknown faces to see, as his carriage transverses the recently combined United Kingdom which formed by the Union between Scotland and England. During the six months long trip and many stays, the rivers crossed the carriage sinks, people almost stopped breathing, the water not conducive for it, in the middle of nowhere. Not alone though, the intrepid Mr.Bramble brings spinster sister and (not liking this), Tabitha, nephew Jeremy Melford protective older brother of his lovelorn sister Lydia and loyal Humphry Clinker a new servant found along the road destitute, something mysterious in his background. These five are the main characters, others minor individuals that show up and promptly disappear. Former friends, unimportant servants in the story yet do help the narrative on the paths from Wales, England and Scotland and back. The resort of Bath is fascinating, the unhealthy flock there for the water cure, so do the bored rich who celebrate, and the amusing interaction of the travelers especially Bramble gives the right amount of spice to the preceding, the flavor is delicious. The peak interest is Scotland's exotic Lochs (lakes), remote, unbelievably beautiful, even unsettling. Dr. Smollett a native of the country tries to hide his love for this but the pride shows... The Highwaymen attack, pistols drawn, the well-off feast, suspicions flurry, intimidating strangers frighten the timid...Sadistic pranks abound, coarse jokes frequently said, this isn't the Victorian age...welcome to the 1700s. I confess this era is a good place to visit, when it was written by a man living at the time.
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August 31, 2023A further episode in my adventures in pursuit of the strange and wonderful creation that was known as the three-volume novel.
There are perhaps too many words in that title but I'll leave them there since one of the main characteristics of the three-volume novel was the superadded quantity of its words. Incidentally, the word 'superadded' was first used by Laurence Sterne in his nine-volume novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a mere decade before Smollett published this three-volume novel.
Sterne and Smollett have other things in common besides their superadded words: they are both very funny, and not only because they offer amusing anecdotes about colorful characters but also because of the way they can laugh at themselves as writers. I remember thinking Sterne had inserted himself into Tristram Shandy as the eccentric character, Yorick, who liked to ride a bony old horse exactly like Don Quixote's horse, Rocinante. Well, Smollett goes a step further: he inserts himself into this novel under his own name (and makes himself sound a little eccentric too), plus there are lots of direct and indirect references to Don Quixote which Smollett had translated in the 1750s, the version Sterne may even have read.
Smollett's and Sterne's novels are further alike in that they both contain sections that can be classed as travel writing (and isn't Don Quixote about a journey too)—but they differ quite a bit as well. Sterne's has one first person narrator (who tells us of his own conception, birth and related matters), whereas The Expedition of Humphry Clinker is entirely composed of the letters of five different characters to five different recipients over a nine-month period during which they are traveling together across England, Scotland, and Wales. The letters manage to contain much more plot and intrigue than is found in Tristram Shandy—although exactly like the character Tristram Shandy, Humphry Clinker doesn't make an appearance in the book named for him until a third of the way in, and his conception and birth are significant to the working out of the intrigue.
But unlike Tristram, Humphry never becomes the main character and we rarely hear his opinions. You might say there are two main characters in Smollett's book, Matthew Bramble, the Squire of Brambleton-hall, and his nephew, Jery Melford, both of whose letters take up many pages of the book. The rest of the letters are written by the Squire's sister Tabatha, her maid, Winnifred Jenkins*, and Jery Melford's sister Liddy, niece to both Matthew and Tabatha Bramble, and those letters serve to fill the reader in on little aspects of plot which the Squire and his nephew couldn't know.
The Squire's and Jery's letters provide an interesting double record of the journey's progress because they write about exactly the same things. You might think that would make for a lot of repetition, and there is repetition, but it works because the two have very different perspectives on everything that happens. And Jery includes a report of his uncle's prickly opinions on every stage of the journey so that the entertainment of the uncle's original account is tripled and quadrupled. .
As the story of a journey, Smollett's book reminded me of Gogol's Dead Souls from 1842. The resemblances were in the comedy but also in the accounts of all the eccentric landowners the main characters of both books meet on their journeys. And like Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy, the two books contain several inserted stories unrelated to the main narrative.
For a book published in 1770, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker feels very inventive and modern—though not more so than its predecessors Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote. But Smollett's book felt far more modern to me than George Gissing's, New Grub Street from 1880, the three-volume novel about three-volume novels that had sent me on the track of Smollett.
Incidentally, Smollett mentions old Grub Street, or the original Grub Street, the London street where small-time writers, hack journalists, and struggling publishers were based. I'm going to include a passage that describes Squire Bramble's opinion about the London publishing world after he meets a couple of celebrated writers, and although the passage is long, I think it is worth sharing. After reading it, you may conclude, as I did, that not a lot has changed in the book world in the last two hundred and fifty years :
Yesterday, I went to return an afternoon's visit to a gentleman of my acquaintance, at whose house I found one of the authors of the present age, who has written with some success — As I had read one or two of his performances, which gave me pleasure, I was glad of this opportunity to know his person; but his discourse and deportment destroyed all the impressions which his writings had made in his favour. He took upon him to decide dogmatically upon every subject, without deigning to shew the least cause for his differing from the general opinions of mankind...He rejudged the characters of all the principal authors, who had died within a century of the present time; and, in this revision, paid no sort of regard to the reputation they had acquired — Milton was harsh and prosaic; Dryden, languid and verbose; Butler and Swift without humour; Congreve, without wit; and Pope destitute of any sort of poetical merit — As for his contemporaries, he could not bear to hear one of them mentioned with any degree of applause — They were all dunces, pedants, plagiaries, quacks, and impostors; and you could not name a single performance, but what was tame, stupid, and insipid...This arrogance and presumption, in depreciating authors, for whose reputation the company may be interested, is such an insult upon the understanding, as I could not bear without wincing. I desired to know his reasons for decrying some works, which had afforded me uncommon pleasure; and, as demonstration did not seem to be his talent, I dissented from his opinion with great freedom. Having been spoiled by the deference and humility of his hearers, he did not bear contradiction with much temper; and the dispute might have grown warm, had it not been interrupted by the entrance of a rival bard, at whose appearance he always quits the place — They are of different cabals, and have been at open war these twenty years — If the other was dogmatical, this genius was declamatory: he did not discourse, but harangue; and his orations were equally tedious and turgid. He too pronounces ex cathedra upon the characters of his contemporaries; and though he scruples not to deal out praise, even lavishly, to the lowest reptile in Grubstreet who will either flatter him in private, or mount the public rostrum as his panegyrist, he damns all the other writers of the age, with the utmost insolence and rancour — One is a blunderbuss, as being a native of Ireland; another, a half-starved louse of literature, from the banks of the Tweed; a third, an ass, because he enjoys a pension from the government; a fourth, the very angel of dulness, because he succeeded in a species of writing in which this Aristarchus had failed; a fifth, who presumed to make strictures upon one of his performances, he holds as a bug in criticism, whose stench is more offensive than his sting — In short, except himself and his myrmidons, there is not a man of genius or learning in the three kingdoms. As for the success of those, who have written without the pale of this confederacy, he imputes it entirely to want of taste in the public; not considering, that to the approbation of that very tasteless public, he himself owes all the consequence he has in life...Every thing I see, and hear, and feel, in this great reservoir of folly, knavery, and sophistication, contributes to inhance the value of a country life, in the sentiments of
Yours always,
MATT. BRAMBLE.
And finally, here's Jery's view of the same occasion:
A confused hum of insipid observations and comments ensued; and, upon the whole, I never passed a duller evening in my life — Yet, without all doubt, some of them were men of learning, wit, and ingenuity. As they are afraid of making free with one another, they should bring each his butt, or whet-stone, along with him, for the entertainment of the company — My uncle says, he never desires to meet with more than one wit at a time — One wit, like a knuckle of ham in soup, gives a zest and flavour to the dish; but more than one serves only to spoil the pottage — And now I'm afraid I have given you an unconscionable mess, without any flavour at all; for which, I suppose, you will bestow your benedictions upon,
your friend and servant,
JERY MELFORD.
*Winnifred Jenkins's letters are full of malapropisms.
O Mary! the whole family have been in such a constipation! The 'squire did all in his power, but could not prevent his [Humphry Clinker] being put in chains, and confined among common manufactors, where he stood like an innocent sheep in the midst of wolves and tygers. — Lord knows what mought have happened to this pyehouse young man, if master had not applied to Apias Korkus, who lives with the ould bailiff, and is, they say, five hundred years old...The player man that came after Miss Liddy, and frightened me with a beard at Bristol Well, is now matthew-murphy'd into a fine young gentleman, son and hare of 'squire Dollison...
The word matthew-murphy'd for metamorphosed reminded me of how James Joyce had Molly Bloom pronounce the word metempsychosis in Ulysses: met him pike hoses. And that lead me to wonder if Joyce wasn't inspired by the name Humphry Clinker when he named the main character of Finnegans Wake Humphry Earwicker...
There are perhaps too many words in that title but I'll leave them there since one of the main characteristics of the three-volume novel was the superadded quantity of its words. Incidentally, the word 'superadded' was first used by Laurence Sterne in his nine-volume novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a mere decade before Smollett published this three-volume novel.
Sterne and Smollett have other things in common besides their superadded words: they are both very funny, and not only because they offer amusing anecdotes about colorful characters but also because of the way they can laugh at themselves as writers. I remember thinking Sterne had inserted himself into Tristram Shandy as the eccentric character, Yorick, who liked to ride a bony old horse exactly like Don Quixote's horse, Rocinante. Well, Smollett goes a step further: he inserts himself into this novel under his own name (and makes himself sound a little eccentric too), plus there are lots of direct and indirect references to Don Quixote which Smollett had translated in the 1750s, the version Sterne may even have read.
Smollett's and Sterne's novels are further alike in that they both contain sections that can be classed as travel writing (and isn't Don Quixote about a journey too)—but they differ quite a bit as well. Sterne's has one first person narrator (who tells us of his own conception, birth and related matters), whereas The Expedition of Humphry Clinker is entirely composed of the letters of five different characters to five different recipients over a nine-month period during which they are traveling together across England, Scotland, and Wales. The letters manage to contain much more plot and intrigue than is found in Tristram Shandy—although exactly like the character Tristram Shandy, Humphry Clinker doesn't make an appearance in the book named for him until a third of the way in, and his conception and birth are significant to the working out of the intrigue.
But unlike Tristram, Humphry never becomes the main character and we rarely hear his opinions. You might say there are two main characters in Smollett's book, Matthew Bramble, the Squire of Brambleton-hall, and his nephew, Jery Melford, both of whose letters take up many pages of the book. The rest of the letters are written by the Squire's sister Tabatha, her maid, Winnifred Jenkins*, and Jery Melford's sister Liddy, niece to both Matthew and Tabatha Bramble, and those letters serve to fill the reader in on little aspects of plot which the Squire and his nephew couldn't know.
The Squire's and Jery's letters provide an interesting double record of the journey's progress because they write about exactly the same things. You might think that would make for a lot of repetition, and there is repetition, but it works because the two have very different perspectives on everything that happens. And Jery includes a report of his uncle's prickly opinions on every stage of the journey so that the entertainment of the uncle's original account is tripled and quadrupled. .
As the story of a journey, Smollett's book reminded me of Gogol's Dead Souls from 1842. The resemblances were in the comedy but also in the accounts of all the eccentric landowners the main characters of both books meet on their journeys. And like Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy, the two books contain several inserted stories unrelated to the main narrative.
For a book published in 1770, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker feels very inventive and modern—though not more so than its predecessors Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote. But Smollett's book felt far more modern to me than George Gissing's, New Grub Street from 1880, the three-volume novel about three-volume novels that had sent me on the track of Smollett.
Incidentally, Smollett mentions old Grub Street, or the original Grub Street, the London street where small-time writers, hack journalists, and struggling publishers were based. I'm going to include a passage that describes Squire Bramble's opinion about the London publishing world after he meets a couple of celebrated writers, and although the passage is long, I think it is worth sharing. After reading it, you may conclude, as I did, that not a lot has changed in the book world in the last two hundred and fifty years :
Yesterday, I went to return an afternoon's visit to a gentleman of my acquaintance, at whose house I found one of the authors of the present age, who has written with some success — As I had read one or two of his performances, which gave me pleasure, I was glad of this opportunity to know his person; but his discourse and deportment destroyed all the impressions which his writings had made in his favour. He took upon him to decide dogmatically upon every subject, without deigning to shew the least cause for his differing from the general opinions of mankind...He rejudged the characters of all the principal authors, who had died within a century of the present time; and, in this revision, paid no sort of regard to the reputation they had acquired — Milton was harsh and prosaic; Dryden, languid and verbose; Butler and Swift without humour; Congreve, without wit; and Pope destitute of any sort of poetical merit — As for his contemporaries, he could not bear to hear one of them mentioned with any degree of applause — They were all dunces, pedants, plagiaries, quacks, and impostors; and you could not name a single performance, but what was tame, stupid, and insipid...This arrogance and presumption, in depreciating authors, for whose reputation the company may be interested, is such an insult upon the understanding, as I could not bear without wincing. I desired to know his reasons for decrying some works, which had afforded me uncommon pleasure; and, as demonstration did not seem to be his talent, I dissented from his opinion with great freedom. Having been spoiled by the deference and humility of his hearers, he did not bear contradiction with much temper; and the dispute might have grown warm, had it not been interrupted by the entrance of a rival bard, at whose appearance he always quits the place — They are of different cabals, and have been at open war these twenty years — If the other was dogmatical, this genius was declamatory: he did not discourse, but harangue; and his orations were equally tedious and turgid. He too pronounces ex cathedra upon the characters of his contemporaries; and though he scruples not to deal out praise, even lavishly, to the lowest reptile in Grubstreet who will either flatter him in private, or mount the public rostrum as his panegyrist, he damns all the other writers of the age, with the utmost insolence and rancour — One is a blunderbuss, as being a native of Ireland; another, a half-starved louse of literature, from the banks of the Tweed; a third, an ass, because he enjoys a pension from the government; a fourth, the very angel of dulness, because he succeeded in a species of writing in which this Aristarchus had failed; a fifth, who presumed to make strictures upon one of his performances, he holds as a bug in criticism, whose stench is more offensive than his sting — In short, except himself and his myrmidons, there is not a man of genius or learning in the three kingdoms. As for the success of those, who have written without the pale of this confederacy, he imputes it entirely to want of taste in the public; not considering, that to the approbation of that very tasteless public, he himself owes all the consequence he has in life...Every thing I see, and hear, and feel, in this great reservoir of folly, knavery, and sophistication, contributes to inhance the value of a country life, in the sentiments of
Yours always,
MATT. BRAMBLE.
And finally, here's Jery's view of the same occasion:
A confused hum of insipid observations and comments ensued; and, upon the whole, I never passed a duller evening in my life — Yet, without all doubt, some of them were men of learning, wit, and ingenuity. As they are afraid of making free with one another, they should bring each his butt, or whet-stone, along with him, for the entertainment of the company — My uncle says, he never desires to meet with more than one wit at a time — One wit, like a knuckle of ham in soup, gives a zest and flavour to the dish; but more than one serves only to spoil the pottage — And now I'm afraid I have given you an unconscionable mess, without any flavour at all; for which, I suppose, you will bestow your benedictions upon,
your friend and servant,
JERY MELFORD.
*Winnifred Jenkins's letters are full of malapropisms.
O Mary! the whole family have been in such a constipation! The 'squire did all in his power, but could not prevent his [Humphry Clinker] being put in chains, and confined among common manufactors, where he stood like an innocent sheep in the midst of wolves and tygers. — Lord knows what mought have happened to this pyehouse young man, if master had not applied to Apias Korkus, who lives with the ould bailiff, and is, they say, five hundred years old...The player man that came after Miss Liddy, and frightened me with a beard at Bristol Well, is now matthew-murphy'd into a fine young gentleman, son and hare of 'squire Dollison...
The word matthew-murphy'd for metamorphosed reminded me of how James Joyce had Molly Bloom pronounce the word metempsychosis in Ulysses: met him pike hoses. And that lead me to wonder if Joyce wasn't inspired by the name Humphry Clinker when he named the main character of Finnegans Wake Humphry Earwicker...
December 25, 2021
A bit heavy on sentiment and silliness and rather too light on LOLs, but Smollett here captures the sights, sounds and smells of eighteenth century Britain beautifully, and for that his final novel earns a creditable four stars.
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June 22, 2017Reading the 18th Century novel is very much like riding a rambunctious horse. Actually, bowling along in a carriage; 100 years later, Eliot and the great Victorian novelists who were living with the noisy, fast, smoke-gouting trains would write with nostalgia of the grace and quietude and elegance of carriage travel. But the 17th Century novel depicts it as it more likely was, with is heat, travel-sickness from the jolts, and frequent breakdowns and overturns in the terrible roads, with highwaymen everywhere as there was no real law and order on the highway.
Matthew Bramble, his spinster sister, his well-bred niece and nephew, and their servants, set out from Wales to travel all over England and Scotland. Along the way they encounter many odd characters, and as they write home to friends about their adventures, the reader gets an agreeable picture of the action from several points-of-view. Funniest are the spinster sister's letters, with their Freudrian misspellings, and the even more unintentionally bawdy and scatological gaspers of Ms. Jenkins, her maid.
Duels that go awry, savage essays on hypocrisy in high society and about how fast cities change and become unrecognizable (and about the taste for speed with which city drivers careen their vehicles through London streets), about filthy germ-spreading habits in supposedly healthful spas (do NOT read the section on Bath right before a meal!), will whipsaw the reader between remote concerns and contemporary reactions. Smollett also writes himself into the story, as do 18th Century authors, and he doesn't forget to villify current writers, politicians, and other leaders against whom he has a grudge— and likewise to drape in flattering terms and oblique names his friends.
The group finds one Humphrey Clinker, an earnest young man with a religious bent. When he first drives for the family, his butt is hanging out of his rags, and the maid comments that she rather likes the sight. At the end, he turns out to be Bramble's long lost natural son, there are three weddings, and everyone is happy— with some very odd marriage customs described.
It's a deliciously fun novel, a vivid picture of England and Scotland at the time, and an excellent insight into how the times were changing toward modernity even then. Smollet's interests range between a vast and fascinating number of subjects: marriage customs, courting, medical technology (or lack of same); politics; the roads; the history of language (a good bit is when two characters are discussing how the words in Shakespear's plays have changed meaning); food; the strange justice system; education; and, of course, the dangers of travel.
Matthew Bramble, his spinster sister, his well-bred niece and nephew, and their servants, set out from Wales to travel all over England and Scotland. Along the way they encounter many odd characters, and as they write home to friends about their adventures, the reader gets an agreeable picture of the action from several points-of-view. Funniest are the spinster sister's letters, with their Freudrian misspellings, and the even more unintentionally bawdy and scatological gaspers of Ms. Jenkins, her maid.
Duels that go awry, savage essays on hypocrisy in high society and about how fast cities change and become unrecognizable (and about the taste for speed with which city drivers careen their vehicles through London streets), about filthy germ-spreading habits in supposedly healthful spas (do NOT read the section on Bath right before a meal!), will whipsaw the reader between remote concerns and contemporary reactions. Smollett also writes himself into the story, as do 18th Century authors, and he doesn't forget to villify current writers, politicians, and other leaders against whom he has a grudge— and likewise to drape in flattering terms and oblique names his friends.
The group finds one Humphrey Clinker, an earnest young man with a religious bent. When he first drives for the family, his butt is hanging out of his rags, and the maid comments that she rather likes the sight. At the end, he turns out to be Bramble's long lost natural son, there are three weddings, and everyone is happy— with some very odd marriage customs described.
It's a deliciously fun novel, a vivid picture of England and Scotland at the time, and an excellent insight into how the times were changing toward modernity even then. Smollet's interests range between a vast and fascinating number of subjects: marriage customs, courting, medical technology (or lack of same); politics; the roads; the history of language (a good bit is when two characters are discussing how the words in Shakespear's plays have changed meaning); food; the strange justice system; education; and, of course, the dangers of travel.
December 16, 2021
This epistolary novel is more of a travelogue and a social commentary than a story. There is no proper plot but only a loosely held storyline for Smollett to express his views and observations on the landscape and conditions of various parts of the United Kingdom, their cultures and customs, and their social norms.
In this Expedition, one Mr. Mathew Bramble, a hypochondriac Welshman, leaves his native land to tour various parts of England and Scotland, accompanied by his hot-headed nephew, nervous niece, his maiden sister who is ever in the lookout for a husband, her lady's maid, and a few household servants. In mid-story, they are joined by a young pious man called Humphrey Clinker, to whom the title is dedicated. While thus journeying, the four family members and the lady's maid write to their friends describing their adventures, the landscapes, and conditions of the different parts they travel, their views and observations of the people, culture, and customs. And these letters unfold this rather singular story.
Smollett's purpose is writing this Expedition is clear from the beginning. He hasn't taken the pen to write an ordinary story. Rather, he has armed himself with it to lash at many quarters, exposing them to ridicule through his satire. The royals, the aristocrats, the statesmen, the parliament procedures, the press, the clergy, the literary men, and society women, no one has been able to escape the satirical power of his pen. This somewhat strong social commentary is at the core of the novel. However, satire is not his only motive. He has also wanted to provide the readers with a clear picture of different landscapes, conditions, cultures, and customs of the different parts of the Kingdom. With Mathew Bramble and company, Smollett takes us to various cities including Gloucester, Bath, London, Scarborough, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Scottish Highlands, detailing how these places looked and the customs of the people therein in the 18th century, making this Expedition almost a historical travelogue.
The novel, though lacking in story, kept my interest through the cultural and conditional diversity of places and people. I also enjoyed the social commentary, although Smollett was a little too strong on women. The title was puzzling since Humphrey Clinker plays quite a minor role. I would have thought that a title like "the Expedition of Matthew Bramble and company" would have suited it better. :) In any case, the novel was light and entertaining, and I had a pleasant reading expedition!
In this Expedition, one Mr. Mathew Bramble, a hypochondriac Welshman, leaves his native land to tour various parts of England and Scotland, accompanied by his hot-headed nephew, nervous niece, his maiden sister who is ever in the lookout for a husband, her lady's maid, and a few household servants. In mid-story, they are joined by a young pious man called Humphrey Clinker, to whom the title is dedicated. While thus journeying, the four family members and the lady's maid write to their friends describing their adventures, the landscapes, and conditions of the different parts they travel, their views and observations of the people, culture, and customs. And these letters unfold this rather singular story.
Smollett's purpose is writing this Expedition is clear from the beginning. He hasn't taken the pen to write an ordinary story. Rather, he has armed himself with it to lash at many quarters, exposing them to ridicule through his satire. The royals, the aristocrats, the statesmen, the parliament procedures, the press, the clergy, the literary men, and society women, no one has been able to escape the satirical power of his pen. This somewhat strong social commentary is at the core of the novel. However, satire is not his only motive. He has also wanted to provide the readers with a clear picture of different landscapes, conditions, cultures, and customs of the different parts of the Kingdom. With Mathew Bramble and company, Smollett takes us to various cities including Gloucester, Bath, London, Scarborough, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Scottish Highlands, detailing how these places looked and the customs of the people therein in the 18th century, making this Expedition almost a historical travelogue.
The novel, though lacking in story, kept my interest through the cultural and conditional diversity of places and people. I also enjoyed the social commentary, although Smollett was a little too strong on women. The title was puzzling since Humphrey Clinker plays quite a minor role. I would have thought that a title like "the Expedition of Matthew Bramble and company" would have suited it better. :) In any case, the novel was light and entertaining, and I had a pleasant reading expedition!
March 15, 2018
18th-century epistolary novel by Salman Rushdie's favorite Quixote translator. It's witty, complex, and undoubtedly quite innovative for its time, and it serves as not only a very informative travelogue of Britain in the mid-late 1700s, but also as a portrait of the political and cultural landscape during this time frame. But gosh darn it, it just wasn't as funny as I was expecting it to be based on laudations calling it "one of the funniest novels of all time." It's certainly witty and chuckleworthy, but it just didn't tickle my funny-bone the way I was hoping it would. That said, it's a commendable work and, I'm assuming, an important one given its placement on university syllabi, and also the fact that I had never heard of it before buying it for a dollar at a library sale (although I was familiar with Smollett). You done good, Toby. Your weary soul can rest easy now.
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February 8, 2018Novel in letters recounting the travels of a family group through England and Scotland featuring the servant (and occasional Methodist lay preacher) they pick up on their way, the eponymous Humphrey Clinker.
Apart from eighteenth-century humour the novel has an unusual Celtic theme for example the Welsh origin of the family and significance of Edinburgh as archetypal 'big city' and in the slightly Don Quixote-like character of the Scottish Officer they pick up in Edinburgh.
One of the few novels whose resolution turns on Welsh inheritance law. Not then your typical eighteenth century novel.
Apart from eighteenth-century humour the novel has an unusual Celtic theme for example the Welsh origin of the family and significance of Edinburgh as archetypal 'big city' and in the slightly Don Quixote-like character of the Scottish Officer they pick up in Edinburgh.
One of the few novels whose resolution turns on Welsh inheritance law. Not then your typical eighteenth century novel.
August 26, 2016
"The pills are good for nothing," fumes the heroic hypochondriac Bramble in one of your better opening sentences, and we're off on a picaresque tour of all the cliches of the 1700s and 1800s. Featuring such greatest hits as:
- Ridiculous coincidences!
- People who turn out to be of higher birth than they seem!
- Casual anti-Semitism, racism, sexism and classism!
- Duels!
- Fainting!
Published in 1771, it was influential to writers of the 1800s and especially influential to Dickens, whose alter ego David Copperfield at one point lists his favorite literary characters and most of them are from Smollett. You can see the influence: Smollett has a flair for caricatures, although Dickens has more of one.
It's an epistolary - of course it's an epistolary - and Smollett uses that structure to show the same events from several different points of view. That's a cool idea, but Smollett can't execute it well enough to keep it interesting. The maid, for example, has one joke: the misuse of words like "suppository" to dirty effect. It gets old even to a 13-year-old like me.
And yet it's all sortof likable. Don Quixote shows up, or close enough. And there's this, from a quack doctor: "Every person who pretended to nauseate the smell of another's excretions, snuffed up his own with particular complacency." So that's maybe the first recorded instance of the maxim that everyone likes the smell of their own shit. And (like my shit) the book is not great, but pleasant enough.
Clinker himself is a minor character, introduced late, which confused me enough that I had to stop 20% through and confirm I was reading the right book. The major characters are:
- Mr. Bramble, the hypochondriac from above;
- His sister Tabitha Bramble, fast becoming a spinster of no return and desperate to marry;
- Her maid Winifred Jenkins, she of the one joke;
- The Bramble nephew Jery Melford, a pleasant but rowdy young man;
- His sister Lydia, who's fallen in love with some dude or other.
They ramble around the Island, especially Scotland, which the Scottish Smollett would like to tell you all about, and then guess what happens in the end?
- Ridiculous coincidences!
- People who turn out to be of higher birth than they seem!
- Casual anti-Semitism, racism, sexism and classism!
- Duels!
- Fainting!
Published in 1771, it was influential to writers of the 1800s and especially influential to Dickens, whose alter ego David Copperfield at one point lists his favorite literary characters and most of them are from Smollett. You can see the influence: Smollett has a flair for caricatures, although Dickens has more of one.
It's an epistolary - of course it's an epistolary - and Smollett uses that structure to show the same events from several different points of view. That's a cool idea, but Smollett can't execute it well enough to keep it interesting. The maid, for example, has one joke: the misuse of words like "suppository" to dirty effect. It gets old even to a 13-year-old like me.
And yet it's all sortof likable. Don Quixote shows up, or close enough. And there's this, from a quack doctor: "Every person who pretended to nauseate the smell of another's excretions, snuffed up his own with particular complacency." So that's maybe the first recorded instance of the maxim that everyone likes the smell of their own shit. And (like my shit) the book is not great, but pleasant enough.
Clinker himself is a minor character, introduced late, which confused me enough that I had to stop 20% through and confirm I was reading the right book. The major characters are:
- Mr. Bramble, the hypochondriac from above;
- His sister Tabitha Bramble, fast becoming a spinster of no return and desperate to marry;
- Her maid Winifred Jenkins, she of the one joke;
- The Bramble nephew Jery Melford, a pleasant but rowdy young man;
- His sister Lydia, who's fallen in love with some dude or other.
They ramble around the Island, especially Scotland, which the Scottish Smollett would like to tell you all about, and then guess what happens in the end?
January 17, 2020
Divertidísima novela epistolar en la que acompañamos a Mr. Brumble y su hipocondría, a sus familiares y a sus respectivos criados a través de buena parte de Inglaterra y Escocia en busca de la cura a sus males.
A través de las cartas que envían, conocemos a cada uno, todos perfectamente retratados, por lo que cuentan y por cómo lo cuentan, las diferentes visiones de un mismo hecho o situación, Smollett era sin duda alguna un gran narrador.
Con mucho humor, absurdo a veces, pero crítico e incisivo otras, te acerca a la realidad social del momento de manera amena, a las costumbres, con mucha crítica y mala leche, hacia escritores, prensa, políticos (...aunque es preciso reconocer que no es ningún hipócrita. No finge tener virtud alguna y no se esfuerza en disimular su carácter. Su ministerio contará con una ventaja, no decepcionará a nadie cuando incumpla sus promesas, pues ningún mortal confía en su palabra), votantes (Si todos los electores recapacitaran y obrasen en conciencia no tendríamos razones para quejarnos de la venalidad de los parlamentos. Pero no somos más que un hatajo de canallas inmorales y corruptos, tan desprovistos del menor sentido de la honradez y la bondad, que estoy convencido de que, en poco tiempo, solo se considerarán infamias la virtud y el civismo), la humanidad entera.
A través de las cartas que envían, conocemos a cada uno, todos perfectamente retratados, por lo que cuentan y por cómo lo cuentan, las diferentes visiones de un mismo hecho o situación, Smollett era sin duda alguna un gran narrador.
Con mucho humor, absurdo a veces, pero crítico e incisivo otras, te acerca a la realidad social del momento de manera amena, a las costumbres, con mucha crítica y mala leche, hacia escritores, prensa, políticos (...aunque es preciso reconocer que no es ningún hipócrita. No finge tener virtud alguna y no se esfuerza en disimular su carácter. Su ministerio contará con una ventaja, no decepcionará a nadie cuando incumpla sus promesas, pues ningún mortal confía en su palabra), votantes (Si todos los electores recapacitaran y obrasen en conciencia no tendríamos razones para quejarnos de la venalidad de los parlamentos. Pero no somos más que un hatajo de canallas inmorales y corruptos, tan desprovistos del menor sentido de la honradez y la bondad, que estoy convencido de que, en poco tiempo, solo se considerarán infamias la virtud y el civismo), la humanidad entera.
January 21, 2023
How many novels have you read about an ostler?
Humphrey Clinker, hero of this daring fiction, was one; an ostler being a stableman at an inn.
For that matter, how many novels have you read that were published in 1771?
Given when it was published, count this as one amazingly creative work of fiction. Highly innovative!
Goodreaders, this was an early model novel. It was an epistolary novel, at that.
When I read this in college, I though it the biggest snoozer ever. In hindsight, I have more of a sense of history, and by now I even add the context of humanity's collective learning, aka Big History.
SO MUCH DRAMA, CONSIDERING
Humphrey suffers false imprisonment, accused of being a highway robber. Definitely, there was drama in this book, as well as comedy and Smollett's relentless ingenuity. Only this was drama 18th century-style.
In hindsight, this novel with six main characters was a great deal more clever than "Friends."
Humphrey Clinker, hero of this daring fiction, was one; an ostler being a stableman at an inn.
For that matter, how many novels have you read that were published in 1771?
Given when it was published, count this as one amazingly creative work of fiction. Highly innovative!
Goodreaders, this was an early model novel. It was an epistolary novel, at that.
When I read this in college, I though it the biggest snoozer ever. In hindsight, I have more of a sense of history, and by now I even add the context of humanity's collective learning, aka Big History.
SO MUCH DRAMA, CONSIDERING
Humphrey suffers false imprisonment, accused of being a highway robber. Definitely, there was drama in this book, as well as comedy and Smollett's relentless ingenuity. Only this was drama 18th century-style.
In hindsight, this novel with six main characters was a great deal more clever than "Friends."
December 3, 2021
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker is an early epistolary novel, published in 1771. In a series of letters from a group of five people, gentry and one servant, it tells the tale of a journey undertaken around England over a period of months by a Welsh squire; his sister, niece, and nephew; and their servants. They visit Bath, London, and various health spas on their way to Scotland, then gradually make their way back south toward home in a series of visits to acquaintances of the squire.
The voices of the letter writers are vivid and they describe many interesting sites and people of the era, but it is not really a novel in a more modern sense, more a series of episodes pulled together at the end by a preposterous series of coincidences. What plot there is has its roots in the comedies of manners then popular on the stage, so the incidents are all pretty formulaic. Characters tend to be types rather than individuals, and the idea of an arc for either story or personality hadn’t really been invented yet. Anyone accustomed to reading Austen or Dickens would find this work fairly primitive. It’s The Vicar of Wakefield without the uplift.
Smollett was known for satire, and he makes broad fun of the manners and habits of the people, imagined and historical, his characters encounter along their journey, especially those with common ailments of the day. Some of these depictions are entertaining enough, but many have fallen victim to the obscurity of the people he is sending up. His contemporaries probably found it to be a laugh-riot. In keeping with the pre-Victorian temper of the era, there is a certain amount of slapstick, mostly involving embarrassing moments of nudity and inconvenient bodily functions.
I was fascinated by descriptions of Vauxhall Gardens and the social life of Edinburgh and elsewhere in Scotland, but must confess that much of the reading was a chore.
The voices of the letter writers are vivid and they describe many interesting sites and people of the era, but it is not really a novel in a more modern sense, more a series of episodes pulled together at the end by a preposterous series of coincidences. What plot there is has its roots in the comedies of manners then popular on the stage, so the incidents are all pretty formulaic. Characters tend to be types rather than individuals, and the idea of an arc for either story or personality hadn’t really been invented yet. Anyone accustomed to reading Austen or Dickens would find this work fairly primitive. It’s The Vicar of Wakefield without the uplift.
Smollett was known for satire, and he makes broad fun of the manners and habits of the people, imagined and historical, his characters encounter along their journey, especially those with common ailments of the day. Some of these depictions are entertaining enough, but many have fallen victim to the obscurity of the people he is sending up. His contemporaries probably found it to be a laugh-riot. In keeping with the pre-Victorian temper of the era, there is a certain amount of slapstick, mostly involving embarrassing moments of nudity and inconvenient bodily functions.
I was fascinated by descriptions of Vauxhall Gardens and the social life of Edinburgh and elsewhere in Scotland, but must confess that much of the reading was a chore.
October 8, 2025
"The Expedition Of Humphry Clinker" is a good read, BUT Humphry Clinker is nowhere near the main character. If anything, Matthew Bramble might be considered the predominant subject of the story.
It's a quaint epistolary novel which, at first, confused me since no mention was made of Clinker, and there was no introduction of the characters. After a quick Google check, I got the cast in order and was able to enjoy the story better.
Next "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" novel: "The Sorrows Of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1774).
It's a quaint epistolary novel which, at first, confused me since no mention was made of Clinker, and there was no introduction of the characters. After a quick Google check, I got the cast in order and was able to enjoy the story better.
Next "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" novel: "The Sorrows Of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1774).
April 23, 2012
What a wonderful human spirit Smollett has. He exploits yet dearly loves the foibles of mankind and know how to make them both uproarious and genuinely reverential. The whole work is, in the end, a paean to friendship.
An 18th century epistolary novel, it presents a running series of letters, without further explication, that follows the travels of squire Matthew Bramble through much of England, into Scotland, and back toward his home in Wales. The letters are written by Bramble, his nephew Edward, his niece Liddy, his sister Tabitha and her "woman," Jenkins. They range from explosive expostulation to some of the funniest episodes ever put on paper.
Each character has a clearly identified style and vocabulary that never fails. But behind it all is the high good humor of the author, who shows himself at once a keen observer and a delighter in human nature.
The plot need worry no one. It's of no consequence. This is a work about people.
An 18th century epistolary novel, it presents a running series of letters, without further explication, that follows the travels of squire Matthew Bramble through much of England, into Scotland, and back toward his home in Wales. The letters are written by Bramble, his nephew Edward, his niece Liddy, his sister Tabitha and her "woman," Jenkins. They range from explosive expostulation to some of the funniest episodes ever put on paper.
Each character has a clearly identified style and vocabulary that never fails. But behind it all is the high good humor of the author, who shows himself at once a keen observer and a delighter in human nature.
The plot need worry no one. It's of no consequence. This is a work about people.
March 29, 2010
Dudes, I couldn't finish this book. It's interesting. So I was into it 3/4 of the way through. It was amusing and unique, though it had it's dry parts. I was liking it. And then one day I looked at it sitting there on my counter, battered in that way Penguin books tend to get, and I thought: "OH MY GOD IF I READ ANOTHER PAGE OF THAT BOOK I WILL KILL MYSELF I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING!"
I don't know what went wrong! Smollett's little cast of characters alternates narration, and they are varied with their own distinctive voices. They travel around England and Scotland visiting spas as part of Matt Bramble's convalescence. He is a grumpy realist who describes the setting and culture of all these different towns, which can get a little dull since I don't know these places and never will because it was 250 years ago. The other travelers are Matt's sister, a desperate spinster, his pretty but frivolous niece, the nieces scholarly brother, a handmaiden, and Humphry Clinker, Bramble's steward, and for the life of me I don't know why he is also the title.
Anyway, all the characters have their own takes on the locations and situations that arise, and it's all very well-written and entertaining, especially if you have a little experience with 18th-century British literature, so... I dunno, I just couldn't do it, ok!?! Ugh, I'm a failure.
I don't know what went wrong! Smollett's little cast of characters alternates narration, and they are varied with their own distinctive voices. They travel around England and Scotland visiting spas as part of Matt Bramble's convalescence. He is a grumpy realist who describes the setting and culture of all these different towns, which can get a little dull since I don't know these places and never will because it was 250 years ago. The other travelers are Matt's sister, a desperate spinster, his pretty but frivolous niece, the nieces scholarly brother, a handmaiden, and Humphry Clinker, Bramble's steward, and for the life of me I don't know why he is also the title.
Anyway, all the characters have their own takes on the locations and situations that arise, and it's all very well-written and entertaining, especially if you have a little experience with 18th-century British literature, so... I dunno, I just couldn't do it, ok!?! Ugh, I'm a failure.
Read
September 4, 2017bored. let’s move on.
June 4, 2019
Broadening the mind...
Matthew Bramble, hypochondriac and charitable Welsh gentleman with a choleric temper and a humorously jaundiced view of life, takes his family on a journey round Britain seeking benefit to his health. As each member of the party writes letters to their friends, we see the country and its regional customs through their eyes, meeting with some interesting and often eccentric characters, and being witness to some hilarious (and some not so hilarious) episodes along the way. Told entirely through the letters, it is, so the introduction by Lewis M Knapp informs me, “often regarded as the most successful epistolary novel in English”.
Matthew takes a grumpy view of life, especially in the beginning when his health is worrying him. A bachelor, he feels a little hard done by to have acquired a family – his maiden sister, Tabitha, who is desperate to throw off her spinster state, and two wards, Jery and Lydia, children of another sister now deceased. Despite his frequent grumbles about them all, though, he loves them and is mostly kind to them. The family are accompanied on their travels, of course, by servants. The maid, Win Jenkins, provides much of the comic relief – her letters full of misspellings and malapropisms, often ‘accidentally’ apt. Through her, we see the family from another angle, not always complimentary. Along the way, they pick up another servant, the eponymous Humphry Clinker, although it baffles me a bit why the book was given his name since I wouldn’t consider him one of the major characters.
Part picaresque, part travelogue, there’s not much in the way of a plot, although there’s a love story concerning Lydia that runs throughout and pulls the thing together to a degree. However, really it’s not setting out to tell a story – it’s an observation, often satirical, of life in England and Scotland in the second half of the eighteenth century.
This was a bit of a rollercoaster for me. I started off loving it, then it dipped badly to the point where I considered giving up, and then picked up again to a most enjoyable second half. As so often, especially with books from long ago, this is more to do with the reader than the book. It starts in the spa towns of England some years before our beloved Bath of Austen’s day, but still eminently recognisable. Then it moves to London where Smollett satirises the politics, politicians and literati of the day, most of whom I didn’t recognise even after checking who they were in the notes at the back, and I found this section intensely dull. However, the family then heads north, up through England and into Scotland where Smollett (a Scot, of course) discourses on habits, customs and the effects of the still relatively recent Union of Scotland and England. Naturally, I found this fascinating and fun since it’s a subject I am interested in and know reasonably well. I suspect other modern readers would find different parts entertaining and dull according to their own interests and knowledge.
Some of the humour is quite crude, often dealing with bodily functions, about which Matthew the hypochondriac especially seems somewhat obsessed. Times were different too, of course, and some of what was apparently humorous back then seems rather cruel today. The women fall into two categories: young, desperately seeking romance, and foolish; or old, desperately seeking husbands, and foolish. I fear our Mr Smollett would today be called a misogynist, though I expect back then he was simply reflecting the prevalent world view.
However, there’s far more ‘good’ humour than bad. The three main correspondents are Matthew, Jery and Lydia, and they each see the world through the prism of their own age, experience and gender. Smollett is brilliant at creating individual voices for each, and maintaining them without a hitch. To Matthew, Bath is a dreadful place, full of riff-raff and the nouveau riche, and he is deeply concerned about the unsanitary conditions prevailing in the famous spas where people drink the waters for their health.
To Jery, it’s a place where he socialises with his peers and talks horses. To Lydia, it’s an enchanted place of romance, with dancing and handsome young men galore. This three-way look at places continues throughout the journey and, as well as providing humour, gives a rounded picture of the attractions and downsides of the various places they stop at, while continuing to let us get to know each of the characters better. Tabby and Win write less often, and mostly about domestic matters for strictly humorous purposes, and if I recall correctly, Humphry doesn’t write at all, so everything we learn about him, we learn at second hand.
Like most Scottish authors following the Union, Smollett was writing primarily for an English audience and, as Scott sometimes does at a later period, he uses the Scottish section to try to explain Scottish culture to them, musing on customs, accents, the legal system, the differences between Lowland and Highland culture, and so on. He introduces another Scottish character later in the book, whose discussions with Matthew enable Smollett to show both sides of the Union – the pros and cons – and this is remarkably interesting given our current national obsession with the same vexed questions three centuries on. He touches briefly on the already-developing cultural dominance of England and English in language and literature, a thing Matthew seems to see as positive, leaving me wondering if Smollett did too. The book itself is written almost entirely in standard English of the time, so should present no major problems for a patient modern reader.
I’ve hummed and hawed over my rating for this one. I was highly entertained by bits and bored to tears by other bits. But because I’m reading it as a Scottish classic and enjoyed the Scottish parts so much, in the end I’ve decided to dismiss the London section and the bawdier sections from my mind and give it the full five stars. And a definite recommendation, if for no other reason than to enjoy Win’s mangled language and observations of her “betters”...
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford World’s Classics.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Matthew Bramble, hypochondriac and charitable Welsh gentleman with a choleric temper and a humorously jaundiced view of life, takes his family on a journey round Britain seeking benefit to his health. As each member of the party writes letters to their friends, we see the country and its regional customs through their eyes, meeting with some interesting and often eccentric characters, and being witness to some hilarious (and some not so hilarious) episodes along the way. Told entirely through the letters, it is, so the introduction by Lewis M Knapp informs me, “often regarded as the most successful epistolary novel in English”.
Matthew takes a grumpy view of life, especially in the beginning when his health is worrying him. A bachelor, he feels a little hard done by to have acquired a family – his maiden sister, Tabitha, who is desperate to throw off her spinster state, and two wards, Jery and Lydia, children of another sister now deceased. Despite his frequent grumbles about them all, though, he loves them and is mostly kind to them. The family are accompanied on their travels, of course, by servants. The maid, Win Jenkins, provides much of the comic relief – her letters full of misspellings and malapropisms, often ‘accidentally’ apt. Through her, we see the family from another angle, not always complimentary. Along the way, they pick up another servant, the eponymous Humphry Clinker, although it baffles me a bit why the book was given his name since I wouldn’t consider him one of the major characters.
Part picaresque, part travelogue, there’s not much in the way of a plot, although there’s a love story concerning Lydia that runs throughout and pulls the thing together to a degree. However, really it’s not setting out to tell a story – it’s an observation, often satirical, of life in England and Scotland in the second half of the eighteenth century.
This was a bit of a rollercoaster for me. I started off loving it, then it dipped badly to the point where I considered giving up, and then picked up again to a most enjoyable second half. As so often, especially with books from long ago, this is more to do with the reader than the book. It starts in the spa towns of England some years before our beloved Bath of Austen’s day, but still eminently recognisable. Then it moves to London where Smollett satirises the politics, politicians and literati of the day, most of whom I didn’t recognise even after checking who they were in the notes at the back, and I found this section intensely dull. However, the family then heads north, up through England and into Scotland where Smollett (a Scot, of course) discourses on habits, customs and the effects of the still relatively recent Union of Scotland and England. Naturally, I found this fascinating and fun since it’s a subject I am interested in and know reasonably well. I suspect other modern readers would find different parts entertaining and dull according to their own interests and knowledge.
Some of the humour is quite crude, often dealing with bodily functions, about which Matthew the hypochondriac especially seems somewhat obsessed. Times were different too, of course, and some of what was apparently humorous back then seems rather cruel today. The women fall into two categories: young, desperately seeking romance, and foolish; or old, desperately seeking husbands, and foolish. I fear our Mr Smollett would today be called a misogynist, though I expect back then he was simply reflecting the prevalent world view.
However, there’s far more ‘good’ humour than bad. The three main correspondents are Matthew, Jery and Lydia, and they each see the world through the prism of their own age, experience and gender. Smollett is brilliant at creating individual voices for each, and maintaining them without a hitch. To Matthew, Bath is a dreadful place, full of riff-raff and the nouveau riche, and he is deeply concerned about the unsanitary conditions prevailing in the famous spas where people drink the waters for their health.
For my part, I detest it [Bath] so much, that I should not have been able to stay so long in the place, if I had not discovered some old friends, whose conversation alleviates my disgust. Going to the coffee-house one forenoon, I could not help contemplating the company, with equal surprise and compassion. We consisted of thirteen individuals: seven lamed by the gout, rheumatism, or palsy; three maimed by accident; and the rest either deaf or blind. One hobbled, another hopped, a third dragged his legs after him like a wounded snake, a fourth straddled betwixt a pair of long crutches, like the mummy of a felon hanging in chains; a fifth was bent into a horizontal position, like a mounted telescope, shoved in by a couple of chairmen; and a sixth was the bust of a man, set upright in a wheel machine, which the waiter moved from place to place.
To Jery, it’s a place where he socialises with his peers and talks horses. To Lydia, it’s an enchanted place of romance, with dancing and handsome young men galore. This three-way look at places continues throughout the journey and, as well as providing humour, gives a rounded picture of the attractions and downsides of the various places they stop at, while continuing to let us get to know each of the characters better. Tabby and Win write less often, and mostly about domestic matters for strictly humorous purposes, and if I recall correctly, Humphry doesn’t write at all, so everything we learn about him, we learn at second hand.
Like most Scottish authors following the Union, Smollett was writing primarily for an English audience and, as Scott sometimes does at a later period, he uses the Scottish section to try to explain Scottish culture to them, musing on customs, accents, the legal system, the differences between Lowland and Highland culture, and so on. He introduces another Scottish character later in the book, whose discussions with Matthew enable Smollett to show both sides of the Union – the pros and cons – and this is remarkably interesting given our current national obsession with the same vexed questions three centuries on. He touches briefly on the already-developing cultural dominance of England and English in language and literature, a thing Matthew seems to see as positive, leaving me wondering if Smollett did too. The book itself is written almost entirely in standard English of the time, so should present no major problems for a patient modern reader.
I’ve hummed and hawed over my rating for this one. I was highly entertained by bits and bored to tears by other bits. But because I’m reading it as a Scottish classic and enjoyed the Scottish parts so much, in the end I’ve decided to dismiss the London section and the bawdier sections from my mind and give it the full five stars. And a definite recommendation, if for no other reason than to enjoy Win’s mangled language and observations of her “betters”...
DEAR MARY,
Sunders Macully, the Scotchman, who pushes directly for Vails, has promised to give it you into your own hand, and therefore I would not miss the opportunity to let you know as I am still in the land of the living: and yet I have been on the brink of the other world since I sent you my last letter. — We went by sea to another kingdom called Fife, and coming back, had like to have gone to pot in a storm. — What between the frite and sickness, I thought I should have brought my heart up; even Mr Clinker was not his own man for eight and forty hours after we got ashore. It was well for some folks that we scaped drownding; for mistress was very frexious, and seemed but indifferently prepared for a change; but, thank God, she was soon put in a better frame by the private exaltations of the reverend Mr Macrocodile.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford World’s Classics.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
August 28, 2009
I was not expecting to like this work, or any 18th Century Epistolary novel featuring a character with a funny name. I just imagined some goofy British person stealing chickens and being a wag and angering the constable and complaining about Bolingbroke and eating bangers and mash. And yet I ended up loving it. Its an interesting melange of "authors" getting together to describe an expedition that starts at the apparent healing waters of Bath, moves to Scotland, and ends in London. The more proper title should be "The Life and Thoughts and Expeditions of Matthew Bramble," because the grumpy hypochondriac patriarch steals the show with his observations and prescribed opinions about the way the world should work, why it doesn't, why it won't, and those damn young people.
Humphry Clinker doesn't show up until about 70 pages, and he's a noble savage type who keeps reappearing and eventually joins Bramble's caravan. Bramble's alter-ego is his nephew, Jeremy Melford, an educated type who constantly reminds you of the objective reserve he thinks he has. Jery, however, is incapable of experiencing anything worthwhile, and his off-handed remarks only barely hide his lurking nature. It's great stuff seeing it from the two perspectives, and the epistolary form offers dual insights on situations that work brilliantly as a narrative.
Worth reading for any fan of the novel.
Humphry Clinker doesn't show up until about 70 pages, and he's a noble savage type who keeps reappearing and eventually joins Bramble's caravan. Bramble's alter-ego is his nephew, Jeremy Melford, an educated type who constantly reminds you of the objective reserve he thinks he has. Jery, however, is incapable of experiencing anything worthwhile, and his off-handed remarks only barely hide his lurking nature. It's great stuff seeing it from the two perspectives, and the epistolary form offers dual insights on situations that work brilliantly as a narrative.
Worth reading for any fan of the novel.
August 22, 2011
How one book can break so many of the accepted conventions of writing and still be a good read is testimony to Mr. Smollett's genius. This book is epistolary and breaks the show don't tell rule in every scene, is told from several viewpoints (some scenes you piece together from retellings by the various narrators like Rashomon), has long rambling passages of philosophy (yet uses that for character development in a unique manner) and has no plot arc (instead having a plot maze).
Yet at the end of the plot maze, I was astounded at how each character was satisfied in their quest and all the ends bound together as well as any Dickens novel.
I found myself really liking many of these characters as I got to know them better and was truly glad for them as they found health and happiness.
I was also blow away by how beautifully constructed this non-linear view of the "vanity fair" to use Mr. Thackeray's phrase. And by how Humphry the happy element (happy in the old sense of lucky or chance) contributes to make this book come together and to banish boredom, as he and the other characters are displayed to their advantage and disadvantage.
Yet at the end of the plot maze, I was astounded at how each character was satisfied in their quest and all the ends bound together as well as any Dickens novel.
I found myself really liking many of these characters as I got to know them better and was truly glad for them as they found health and happiness.
I was also blow away by how beautifully constructed this non-linear view of the "vanity fair" to use Mr. Thackeray's phrase. And by how Humphry the happy element (happy in the old sense of lucky or chance) contributes to make this book come together and to banish boredom, as he and the other characters are displayed to their advantage and disadvantage.
August 4, 2017
3 1/2 stars
This is an epistolyary novel comprised of the letters of five very different comunicators. I found it more interesting than entertaining. Although a work of fiction it was still a fairly detailed traveloge, crammed full of the personalities and popular places of the time. The grumpy misanthropic uncle (Mathew Bramble) saw everything through a lens of distaste which no doubt highlighted everything more than a less critical observer would have done. Not much escaped his scathing pen and very little was deemed worthwhile - people were generally hypocritcal cheats and cities were positive sinks of inequity because of the corresponding increase in corrupt human souls pressing in on you from every side. Add to that poor food and disturbed sleep and you can see why Mr Bramble spent the whole trip complaining and wanting to be back in his peaceful country estate.
His nephew was a hot tempered younger version of the uncle himself only not so interesting. The niece, boringly virtuous and meekly pathetic, was even less interesting than her brother. The avaricious sister (and aunt) was mildly amusing in her desperate attempts to find a husband, any husband! So long as he wore trousers that was good enough! The best letters of the lot came from the aunts maidservant. Her poor spelling and gossip were more to my tastes anyway.
Humphrey Clinker himself came in partway through the book; a poor misbegotten wretch that the iscrasible but kind hearted Mr Bramble took on as a servant.
There really isn't any plot in this book and I'm sure that Smollett himself didn't intend anyone to take the ridiculous coincidences which abound inside the covers seriously. It's a light hearted read and I wouldn't go looking for anything more meaningful than that.
This is an epistolyary novel comprised of the letters of five very different comunicators. I found it more interesting than entertaining. Although a work of fiction it was still a fairly detailed traveloge, crammed full of the personalities and popular places of the time. The grumpy misanthropic uncle (Mathew Bramble) saw everything through a lens of distaste which no doubt highlighted everything more than a less critical observer would have done. Not much escaped his scathing pen and very little was deemed worthwhile - people were generally hypocritcal cheats and cities were positive sinks of inequity because of the corresponding increase in corrupt human souls pressing in on you from every side. Add to that poor food and disturbed sleep and you can see why Mr Bramble spent the whole trip complaining and wanting to be back in his peaceful country estate.
His nephew was a hot tempered younger version of the uncle himself only not so interesting. The niece, boringly virtuous and meekly pathetic, was even less interesting than her brother. The avaricious sister (and aunt) was mildly amusing in her desperate attempts to find a husband, any husband! So long as he wore trousers that was good enough! The best letters of the lot came from the aunts maidservant. Her poor spelling and gossip were more to my tastes anyway.
Humphrey Clinker himself came in partway through the book; a poor misbegotten wretch that the iscrasible but kind hearted Mr Bramble took on as a servant.
There really isn't any plot in this book and I'm sure that Smollett himself didn't intend anyone to take the ridiculous coincidences which abound inside the covers seriously. It's a light hearted read and I wouldn't go looking for anything more meaningful than that.
April 23, 2008
Michael and I discovered this one while mocking many of the choices in "1001 Books to Read Before You Die." It has a ridiculous title, so naturally he went upstairs to grab a copy. Instead of continuing the mocking, however, I skimmed and was intrigued, so I checked it out. While I don't think it's necessary to read this before you die, it was pretty funny and well worth my time.
Welsh family goes on holiday all around England and Scotland, writing letters the entire time. Whiny, bitchy, frustrated and love-struck letters abound from the many different characters and yes, it's an epistolary novel. I think Lydia was my favorite.
Welsh family goes on holiday all around England and Scotland, writing letters the entire time. Whiny, bitchy, frustrated and love-struck letters abound from the many different characters and yes, it's an epistolary novel. I think Lydia was my favorite.
October 29, 2013
"..he had reason to believe the stercoraceous flavour, condemned by prejudice as a stink, was, in fact, most agreeable to the organs of smelling; for, that every person who pretended to nauseate the smell of another's excretions, snuffed up his own with particular complacency; for the truth of which he appealed to all the ladies and gentlemen then present..."
What more need I say?
What more need I say?
January 16, 2025
A comedy of manners, which means it was probably funnier in Smollett's day (when people knew what rules were being broken) than it is now. The style is indistinguishable from Jane Austen: it lacks the gratuitous violence and toilet humour of his other works.
January 1, 2022
An enjoyable mix of romantic comedy, social commentary, and travelogue. Caveat that it's from 1771, early in the evolution of the novel. It's not exactly tightly written: there's not much of a story arc, it's rambling, and it gets a bit long-winded in places. But still fun if you have the patience to go along for the ride.
The plot, such as it is, is romantic-comedy ridiculous, full of absurd attachments, mistaken identities, implausible coincidences, ill-advised pranks, and other questionable life choices. All surprisingly durable elements of the form.
It's more interesting to me as a personal, ground-level view of a period of dramatic change in British history. The union with Scotland was still relatively recent, trade and economic growth were starting to really ramp up, and the cities were growing as centers of culture. The story is told in a series of letters from the various members of an old country squire's family and household as they travel around England and Scotland.
Smollett was a Scotsman who lived in London for almost all his adult life. His parents would have been born in an independent Scotland, and the various rebellions (all that Outlander stuff) didn't die out until he was in his mid-twenties. His characters debate the question of what each country lost or gained by the union, and throughout the book they call out and argue against the prejudices of the English toward the Scots.
The old social order was being upended as the balance of economic power was shifting from land to trade. London and the spa towns were growing as social centers for the country gentry, and successful merchants were buying country estates. Industrial cities were booming, and Scotland was emerging as a center of learning. Squire Bramble, clearly Smollett's alter ego, rails throughout against the crowding and filth of the towns and the wasteful luxury of the nouveau riche. But his young niece and nephew are thrilled by the liveliness and variety of the cities and somewhat less enamored of pastoral charms.
One surprising aspect of the book is how much of the social commentary, both positive and critical, turns out to be about specific, real, identifiable people (including Smollett himself and his hangers-on). Names are elided in the text (Lord C—), but that's apparently a fig leaf against libel suits; the extensive end notes in the Penguin Classics edition not only identify everyone, but often include details of their personal histories with Smollett. So some of what seems like broad social commentary is revealed as personal score-settling.
On that note, I would definitely recommend springing for an annotated edition if you're going to read this. The text is perfectly comprehensible, but a lot of words have changed meaning or fallen out of use in the last couple centuries, and there's a fair amount of regional dialect (as well as some mangling of terms by the less literate characters).
The plot, such as it is, is romantic-comedy ridiculous, full of absurd attachments, mistaken identities, implausible coincidences, ill-advised pranks, and other questionable life choices. All surprisingly durable elements of the form.
It's more interesting to me as a personal, ground-level view of a period of dramatic change in British history. The union with Scotland was still relatively recent, trade and economic growth were starting to really ramp up, and the cities were growing as centers of culture. The story is told in a series of letters from the various members of an old country squire's family and household as they travel around England and Scotland.
Smollett was a Scotsman who lived in London for almost all his adult life. His parents would have been born in an independent Scotland, and the various rebellions (all that Outlander stuff) didn't die out until he was in his mid-twenties. His characters debate the question of what each country lost or gained by the union, and throughout the book they call out and argue against the prejudices of the English toward the Scots.
The old social order was being upended as the balance of economic power was shifting from land to trade. London and the spa towns were growing as social centers for the country gentry, and successful merchants were buying country estates. Industrial cities were booming, and Scotland was emerging as a center of learning. Squire Bramble, clearly Smollett's alter ego, rails throughout against the crowding and filth of the towns and the wasteful luxury of the nouveau riche. But his young niece and nephew are thrilled by the liveliness and variety of the cities and somewhat less enamored of pastoral charms.
One surprising aspect of the book is how much of the social commentary, both positive and critical, turns out to be about specific, real, identifiable people (including Smollett himself and his hangers-on). Names are elided in the text (Lord C—), but that's apparently a fig leaf against libel suits; the extensive end notes in the Penguin Classics edition not only identify everyone, but often include details of their personal histories with Smollett. So some of what seems like broad social commentary is revealed as personal score-settling.
On that note, I would definitely recommend springing for an annotated edition if you're going to read this. The text is perfectly comprehensible, but a lot of words have changed meaning or fallen out of use in the last couple centuries, and there's a fair amount of regional dialect (as well as some mangling of terms by the less literate characters).
January 13, 2013
Given how briefly the best authors dedicated themselves to it, realism exerts far too much influence over our reading habits. Beware, when you pick up a Smollett, for here there is no character development, no tight plot, no interest--despite what the back of the book says--in faithfully depicting society.
Humphrey Clinker is, rather, a weird mash-up of Horace and Juvenal's satires, eighteenth century travel literature, and story collections like the Canterbury Tales. It's an epistolary something or other, but 'novel' doesn't quite seem to capture it. The best analogue, though, might be: it's a really good sitcom, in which an ensemble cast goes through a series of incidents, with very little connection to each other, and the final episode is, well, just the end, rather than a nice conclusion.
Who are the letter writers? Bramble is a Juvenalian satirist, complaining at great length about medicine, parvenus, the city and tourism. He could also (an uneducated guess) be a model Austen's Mr Bennett, since he combines his satirical grumpiness with much 'man of feeling' generosity. Melford is a Chaucerian story-teller, whose (anachronism alert!) campness and general lack of interest in the ladies must excite all sorts of queer-theorising. Melford's sister Lydia seems to have wandered in from a very boring Richardson novel. And yet the plot, such as it is, hinges on her. Bramble's semi-illiterate, man-chasing sister Tabitha is wonderfully awful. The yet more illiterate servant Jenkins gives Smollett a chance to make endless fun ("We were yesterday three kiple chined, by the grease of God, in the holy bands of mattermoney") of both his world and the romantic plot itself.
If you come to this expecting Austen (or even Fielding), you'll be greatly disappointed. If you come to it expecting an eighteenth century version of Family Guy, you'll probably be very amused. In other words, to all the one and two star reviewers: this isn't a bad book of realism. It's an excellent work of its own kind. I blame your teachers.
"I should renounce politics the more willingly, if I could find other topics of conversation discussed with more modesty and candour; but the daemon of party seems to have usurped every department of life. Even the world of literature and taste is divided into the most virulent factions, which revile, decry and traduce the works of one another." Bramble, p 136.
"...now, all these enormities might be remedied with a very little attention to the article of police, or civil regulation; but the wise patriots of London have taken it into their heads, that all regulation is inconsistent with liberty; and that every man ought to live in his own way, without restraint-- Nay, as there is not sense enough left among them, to be discomposed by the nuisance I have mentioned, they may, for aught I case, wallow in the mire of their own pollution." Bramble, 154.
Humphrey Clinker is, rather, a weird mash-up of Horace and Juvenal's satires, eighteenth century travel literature, and story collections like the Canterbury Tales. It's an epistolary something or other, but 'novel' doesn't quite seem to capture it. The best analogue, though, might be: it's a really good sitcom, in which an ensemble cast goes through a series of incidents, with very little connection to each other, and the final episode is, well, just the end, rather than a nice conclusion.
Who are the letter writers? Bramble is a Juvenalian satirist, complaining at great length about medicine, parvenus, the city and tourism. He could also (an uneducated guess) be a model Austen's Mr Bennett, since he combines his satirical grumpiness with much 'man of feeling' generosity. Melford is a Chaucerian story-teller, whose (anachronism alert!) campness and general lack of interest in the ladies must excite all sorts of queer-theorising. Melford's sister Lydia seems to have wandered in from a very boring Richardson novel. And yet the plot, such as it is, hinges on her. Bramble's semi-illiterate, man-chasing sister Tabitha is wonderfully awful. The yet more illiterate servant Jenkins gives Smollett a chance to make endless fun ("We were yesterday three kiple chined, by the grease of God, in the holy bands of mattermoney") of both his world and the romantic plot itself.
If you come to this expecting Austen (or even Fielding), you'll be greatly disappointed. If you come to it expecting an eighteenth century version of Family Guy, you'll probably be very amused. In other words, to all the one and two star reviewers: this isn't a bad book of realism. It's an excellent work of its own kind. I blame your teachers.
"I should renounce politics the more willingly, if I could find other topics of conversation discussed with more modesty and candour; but the daemon of party seems to have usurped every department of life. Even the world of literature and taste is divided into the most virulent factions, which revile, decry and traduce the works of one another." Bramble, p 136.
"...now, all these enormities might be remedied with a very little attention to the article of police, or civil regulation; but the wise patriots of London have taken it into their heads, that all regulation is inconsistent with liberty; and that every man ought to live in his own way, without restraint-- Nay, as there is not sense enough left among them, to be discomposed by the nuisance I have mentioned, they may, for aught I case, wallow in the mire of their own pollution." Bramble, 154.
March 26, 2018
An entrancing, howlingly funny, informative, exquisitely written novel about a trip around Great Britain by a country squire and his retinue during the reign of George III.
Matthew Bramble, a country squire whose seat is in Gloucester, embarks on a tour of Britain including Bath, London, York, Scarborough, Edinburgh, the Scottish Highlands, among other places, returning eventually by slow stages to his estate. He is accompanied by his sister, niece and nephew, and his sister's servant. Along the way, they add to their retinue the eponymous Humphry Clinker, a poor and pious young man who becomes Bramble's servant, and Lieutenant Lismahago a Scottish soldier recently returned from the American colonies.
The entire book consists of letters written by Bramble, et. al. to their friends, describing their own observations of and reactions to a multitude of events that occur along their journey. The personalities, educations, and stations of each writer are beautifully developed through their letters as the journey continues. The events themselves can be edifying, sad, enraging, beautiful, and more. But many of them are outlandish and utterly hilarious. With the exception of Bramble's sister and her servant, the letters were written in the style of university-educated people of that time, which to me is like the finest of wines. (The exceptions were functionally illiterate, and their letters included many malapropisms that were always funny and almost always smutty.)
The book was also very valuable as a travelogue, which was all the more fun for me, as I visited many of the places they did, some 210 years later on my first trip to Great Britain.
At first, I was reminded of the Pickwick Papers. But despite his talents, Dickens' works were infinitely more subdued and "proper" compared to the general vitality, bawdiness, and fun behavior of the mid-1700's. I wouldn't think of reading Pickwick Papers again, but I look forward to revisiting Humphry Clinker sometime soon. I'm sure I'll get more out of it each time I return.
The book has no plot to speak of. However, woven through the book is a continuing narrative of intrigues, misunderstandings, and mysterious personages of dubious intentions, all of which resolve themselves in a glorious final 30 pages, reminding me inescapably of Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well".
I haven't had so much fun reading a book in I don't know how long. It was difficult at the beginning due to the daunting number of footnotes one is required to go through to make sense of vocabulary in use then that has long disappeared from the language. But it truly worth the effort.
Matthew Bramble, a country squire whose seat is in Gloucester, embarks on a tour of Britain including Bath, London, York, Scarborough, Edinburgh, the Scottish Highlands, among other places, returning eventually by slow stages to his estate. He is accompanied by his sister, niece and nephew, and his sister's servant. Along the way, they add to their retinue the eponymous Humphry Clinker, a poor and pious young man who becomes Bramble's servant, and Lieutenant Lismahago a Scottish soldier recently returned from the American colonies.
The entire book consists of letters written by Bramble, et. al. to their friends, describing their own observations of and reactions to a multitude of events that occur along their journey. The personalities, educations, and stations of each writer are beautifully developed through their letters as the journey continues. The events themselves can be edifying, sad, enraging, beautiful, and more. But many of them are outlandish and utterly hilarious. With the exception of Bramble's sister and her servant, the letters were written in the style of university-educated people of that time, which to me is like the finest of wines. (The exceptions were functionally illiterate, and their letters included many malapropisms that were always funny and almost always smutty.)
The book was also very valuable as a travelogue, which was all the more fun for me, as I visited many of the places they did, some 210 years later on my first trip to Great Britain.
At first, I was reminded of the Pickwick Papers. But despite his talents, Dickens' works were infinitely more subdued and "proper" compared to the general vitality, bawdiness, and fun behavior of the mid-1700's. I wouldn't think of reading Pickwick Papers again, but I look forward to revisiting Humphry Clinker sometime soon. I'm sure I'll get more out of it each time I return.
The book has no plot to speak of. However, woven through the book is a continuing narrative of intrigues, misunderstandings, and mysterious personages of dubious intentions, all of which resolve themselves in a glorious final 30 pages, reminding me inescapably of Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well".
I haven't had so much fun reading a book in I don't know how long. It was difficult at the beginning due to the daunting number of footnotes one is required to go through to make sense of vocabulary in use then that has long disappeared from the language. But it truly worth the effort.
September 14, 2016
Audiobooks were invented in the 1930s, which is a very significant factoid, because had I lived in the era before, and had the 1,001 Books to Read been published at that time, I honestly don't think I could ever have gotten through this book, which is the most coma-inducing I've ever read.
Why so? Because every form of reading the blasted thing just wouldn't work.
I started with a book, and my eyes turned to glass.
I then downloaded it to my phone, and my thumb couldn't take the torture of flipping to the next page every few minutes.
I then tried an online audibook, and my ears grew a waxy defense.
I then tried breaking it up into chunks, letter by letter, as I carried on with my day, during commutes, whilst on my treadmill.
Everything was painful. I couldn't absorb anything. Various body parts built up specific defenses against incorporating the book into my consciousness. It seems I've gotten vaccinated against epistolary novels.
At the end of this project, when I'm good and old, I will look back on this one as the one I probably didn't properly "read." My entire body conspired against it. I'll just have to move on for now.
This is all the experience of reading the book. How about the book itself? I don't have the energy. This is all I can muster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZHwx...
Why so? Because every form of reading the blasted thing just wouldn't work.
I started with a book, and my eyes turned to glass.
I then downloaded it to my phone, and my thumb couldn't take the torture of flipping to the next page every few minutes.
I then tried an online audibook, and my ears grew a waxy defense.
I then tried breaking it up into chunks, letter by letter, as I carried on with my day, during commutes, whilst on my treadmill.
Everything was painful. I couldn't absorb anything. Various body parts built up specific defenses against incorporating the book into my consciousness. It seems I've gotten vaccinated against epistolary novels.
At the end of this project, when I'm good and old, I will look back on this one as the one I probably didn't properly "read." My entire body conspired against it. I'll just have to move on for now.
This is all the experience of reading the book. How about the book itself? I don't have the energy. This is all I can muster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZHwx...
August 16, 2013
This is a wonderful rambling adventure. Told in an epistolary style, Smollett deftly captures the different voices of the characters – the letters of Winifred Jenkins are probably the funniest pages in the history of literature. The book is inventive and surprising – but it must be read with the context of the late 18th century in mind – to a modern reader it may appear wordy, poorly structured with sloppy plotting, full of opinions and sometimes preachy, but no worse than many other novels of the period. The form of the novel was still developing at the time and Smollett was one of the trend setters. It’s a book to just sit back and enjoy. Then watch The Blues Brothers.
It’s interesting to read this along with Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers. Dickens was influenced by Smollett and purloined a lot plot devices from him – the road trip, the episodic style, the mistaken proposal, the eccentric characters, the comic accents, etc. – even the name of Clinker was morphed in Jingle.
I hope someone does an annotated edition to explain all the historical, cultural and political references.
It’s interesting to read this along with Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers. Dickens was influenced by Smollett and purloined a lot plot devices from him – the road trip, the episodic style, the mistaken proposal, the eccentric characters, the comic accents, etc. – even the name of Clinker was morphed in Jingle.
I hope someone does an annotated edition to explain all the historical, cultural and political references.
October 16, 2018
In the beginning this book made me a bit confused. The author narrates the story through a series of letters, making it difficult to follow the plot. From some point onwards, however, I managed to make some sense and then things became particularly interesting. Through these letters we take a good look at the British society of the time, with all the established situations and the changes that were in the making. I particularly liked the fact that the writers of these letters have different perceptions of everything they see on this trip to Great Britain, with others showing mistrust of social changes, and others seeing a very interesting new world appear in front of them. My problem is that while I found the socio-political criticism particularly interesting, it did not do the same with the story itself. I found it somewhat common and dull and I could not at any point get emotionally involved with it and thus really enjoy this book.
Στην αρχή αυτό το βιβλίο με μπέρδεψε λίγο. Ο συγγραφέας αφηγείται την ιστορία μέσα από μία σειρά επιστολών, κάτι που έκανε δύσκολη την παρακολούθηση της πλοκής. Από κάποιο σημείο και μετά, όμως, κατάφερα να βγάλω κάποιο νόημα και τότε τα πράγματα έγιναν ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέροντα. Μέσα από αυτές τις επιστολές ρίχνουμε μία καλή ματιά στην Βρετανική κοινωνία της εποχής, με όλες τις παγιωμένες καταστάσεις αλλά και τις αλλαγές που συντελούνταν. Μου αρέσει ιδιαίτερα το γεγονός ότι οι συγγραφείς αυτών των επιστολών έχουν διαφορετικές αντιλήψεις για όλα αυτά που παρατηρούν σε αυτό το ταξίδι στη Μεγάλη Βρετανία, με άλλους να βλέπουν με δυσπιστία τις κοινωνικές αλλαγές και άλλους να βλέπουν μπροστά τους να αποκαλύπτεται ένας πολύ ενδιαφέρων νέος κόσμος. Το πρόβλημά μου είναι ότι ενώ βρήκα ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέρουσα την κοινωνικοπολιτική κριτική, δεν συνέβη το ίδιο με την ίδια την ιστορία. Την βρήκα κάπως κοινότυπη και βαρετή και δεν μπόρεσα σε κανένα σημείο να εμπλακώ συναισθηματικά με αυτήν και έτσι να απολαύσω πραγματικά αυτό το βιβλίο.
Στην αρχή αυτό το βιβλίο με μπέρδεψε λίγο. Ο συγγραφέας αφηγείται την ιστορία μέσα από μία σειρά επιστολών, κάτι που έκανε δύσκολη την παρακολούθηση της πλοκής. Από κάποιο σημείο και μετά, όμως, κατάφερα να βγάλω κάποιο νόημα και τότε τα πράγματα έγιναν ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέροντα. Μέσα από αυτές τις επιστολές ρίχνουμε μία καλή ματιά στην Βρετανική κοινωνία της εποχής, με όλες τις παγιωμένες καταστάσεις αλλά και τις αλλαγές που συντελούνταν. Μου αρέσει ιδιαίτερα το γεγονός ότι οι συγγραφείς αυτών των επιστολών έχουν διαφορετικές αντιλήψεις για όλα αυτά που παρατηρούν σε αυτό το ταξίδι στη Μεγάλη Βρετανία, με άλλους να βλέπουν με δυσπιστία τις κοινωνικές αλλαγές και άλλους να βλέπουν μπροστά τους να αποκαλύπτεται ένας πολύ ενδιαφέρων νέος κόσμος. Το πρόβλημά μου είναι ότι ενώ βρήκα ιδιαίτερα ενδιαφέρουσα την κοινωνικοπολιτική κριτική, δεν συνέβη το ίδιο με την ίδια την ιστορία. Την βρήκα κάπως κοινότυπη και βαρετή και δεν μπόρεσα σε κανένα σημείο να εμπλακώ συναισθηματικά με αυτήν και έτσι να απολαύσω πραγματικά αυτό το βιβλίο.
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