Humphry Clinker: Background and Resources

[Frances, Moderator]

Hello everyone and welcome to our November Mod's Choice read-The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. I will be posting a reading schedule shortly, and please let me know in this section if you are planning on joining this read. Feel free to post any background information on this novel, its author Tobias Smollett, or on events occurring in London, England, or the world around 1771, when this novel was published.

[Rosemarie, Moderator]

I'm in for this one!

[Piyangie]

I'll be in as well. I've read very little of 18th century literature, and this author is new to me.

[Abigail]

To expunge the shame of skipping this during my English lit classes forty-odd years ago, I’m in. Sorry, Professor Miller!

[Lori, Moderator]

I'll be joining as well, though possibly a week late.

[Robin P, Moderator]

I will join too. I've never read this. I tended to start my English lit interest with 19th-century.

[Trev]

I have read novels by Fielding, Defoe, Swift, Goldsmith and Richardson but never anything by Smollett. So I ought to try this one.

[Susan]

I'm in on this one.

[Frances, Moderator]

Wonderful! This was on my "I ought to read this" list and I appreciate all the company! I will get the reading schedule sorted soon.

[Brian E]

Thank you Frances for making this a moderator's choice. I have to admit that this one is also more on my "ought to read" list rather than my "expect to love this" list. Although I enter this expecting no more than a 3 star read, I really do "want to read this" as part of my becoming more educated about literature. It also fits well with this group's extension back into the 18th Century.
I really only learned about Smollett after joining Goodreads in 2014 - in a Name This Author game in another GR Group. I then found Dickens referencing him, maybe in David Copperfield, and became most interested as I read more about Smollett. I was also attracted by the fact that this book wasn't a 1000 page Hefty like some other 18th Century works. The plot of this Smollett work seemed to make it a better choice than either Roderick Random or Peregrine Pickle.

[Moppet]

I will join! I've read a lot of 18th century literature and like epistolary novels but never read any Smollett.

[Trev]

I like this potted biography of Smollett from his Scottish homeland, particularly in the way it attempts to show the continued relevence of his work. There is a paragraph about Humphry Clinker towards the end but I don’t think you can class it as a spoiler.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/160...

Anyone interested in the way the women, men and children were dressed between 1770 and 1780 might be interested in this article.

https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/177...

[Detlef]

I would likely join as well. Never read anything by this author. Looking forward to it.

[Frances, Moderator]

If anyone is still looking to purchase a copy, I'm using , which has some explanatory notes, bibliography, chronology etc and even a map of where they travel. I was able to buy it new for $14 Canadian-I wasn't able to find it used at any of my usual on-line or in-person shops, at least not for as good a price.

[Abigail]

Thanks for the link, Trev! That was interesting.

[Frances, Moderator]

A couple of descriptions of 18th century Bath, which features in our first section. I don't know how reliable Jane Lark is as a historian, but enjoyed her descriptions so have attached them here:

https://janelark.blog/2012/04/01/the-...

https://janelark.blog/2012/04/08/a-da...

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/g...

[Trev]

I have loaded the Project Gutenburg edition of the novel into my Kindle. It isn’t split into volumes, but I should be able to use the letters as a guide to the weekly read. It doesn’t have any illustrations but I have found these high quality digitised prints at the Met website.

https://www.metmuseum.org/search-resu...