Tobias Smollett was a prodigious wordsmith. Grub Street was his habitat and hack work his staple, but, as Jeremy Lewis vividly makes clear in this biography, the first for nearly sixty years, there was much more to Smollett than that.. His own life seems almost as eventful and picaresque as one of his novels. Born in Scotland, apprenticed to a surgeon, he came to London to make his fortune. He failed. He served as a surgeon's mate in the West India Squadron and was present at the disastrous attack on Cartagena. He lived in ...
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Tobias Smollett was a prodigious wordsmith. Grub Street was his habitat and hack work his staple, but, as Jeremy Lewis vividly makes clear in this biography, the first for nearly sixty years, there was much more to Smollett than that.. His own life seems almost as eventful and picaresque as one of his novels. Born in Scotland, apprenticed to a surgeon, he came to London to make his fortune. He failed. He served as a surgeon's mate in the West India Squadron and was present at the disastrous attack on Cartagena. He lived in Jamaica for a while, where he married. He returned to London and practised unsuccessfully as a physician. His first novel, The Adventures of Roderick Random was published in 1748. He was editor of the Critical Review and The Briton. His violent political, literary and personal partisanship often landed him in trouble and he spent a brief period in prison for libel. His miscellaneous writings were voluminous, but it is as a novelist that his reputation survives. Roderick Random and Humphry Clinker, both comic masterpieces, alone ensure that. There is also his travel book Travels through France and Italy, shockingly xenophobic and, as Osbert Sitwell said, 'choked with prejudices', but for all that, very readable. There are few better biographers than Jeremy Lewis, and he recounts the life and escapades of Tobias Smollett with the sort of gusto that shows him to be completely en rapport with his generous but curmudgeonly subject. 'Lewis's book could scarcely be bettered. It radiates first-hand enjoyment for which there is no substitute.' John Carey 'A lively and unpretentious biography of the most politically incorrect novelist ever to set pen to paper.' Sunday Times 'Lewis details (Smollett's) escapades with a sense of novelistic bawdy that Smollett himself would surely have appreciated.' Observer
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Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $6.29, good condition, Sold by Wonder Book - Member ABAA/ILAB rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Frederick, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by Pimlico.
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Good. Good condition. A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains.
Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $13.79, new condition, Sold by Pumpkin Wholesale Ltd rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Abingdon, Oxon, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2004 by Vintage Publishing.
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Tobias Smollett's novels are funny, fast-moving, boisterous and coarse, the fictional equivalent of Hogarth's 'Rake's Progress' or a Rowlandson engraving. Indeed without doubt, Smollett is the most vigorous and entertaining of all the great eighteenth-century novelists. Despite enthusiastic advocacy from George Orwell and V.S. Pritchett, he is also the most neglected. In this new biography, the first for over fifty years, Jeremy Lewis sets out to put the record straight. A Scot who lived for much of his life in Chelsea, a medical man who, like Dr Johnson, became a central figure in London literary life, Smollett was barely fifty when he died, but had lived an enviably busy life. As a ship's surgeon, he took part in the disastrous siege of Cartagena, where the sailors dropped like flies from the fever and had to be fed to the sharks; as a Scotsman, he suffered prejudice of a kind that would later be endured by the Irish and West Indians; he was imprisoned for libel, founded and edited the contemporary equivalent of the TLS, did battle with John Wilkes, wore himself out with hack work, and made his name not just with Roderick Random and Humphry Clinker, but with his magnificently spl.
Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $15.57, very good condition, Sold by Halcyon Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from LONDON, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2004 by Pimlico.
Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $15.63, very good condition, Sold by Halcyon Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from LONDON, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2003 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.
Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $16.38, very good condition, Sold by Fireside Bookshop rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Stroud, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2003 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.
Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $18.23, good condition, Sold by Greener Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from London, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2003 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.
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Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! Greener Books.
Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $19.26, good condition, Sold by Cambridge Rare Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Cambridge, Gloucestershire, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2004 by Pimlico.
Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $19.30, very good condition, Sold by Fireside Bookshop rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Stroud, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2003 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.
Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $25.32, like new condition, Sold by Shadow Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Norwich, NORFOLK, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2003 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.
Add this copy of Tobias Smollett to cart. $31.20, new condition, Sold by Kennys.ie rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Galway, IRELAND, published 2004 by Pimlico.
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New. A biography of the great 18th-century novelist, Tobias Smollett, by the author of "Cyril Connolly: A Life". It is filled with curious details from the worlds of publishing, medicine, politics and literary life. Num Pages: 316 pages, 8 pp b/w plates. BIC Classification: 2AB; BG; DSBD; DSK. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 240 x 160 x 21. Weight in Grams: 245. 2004. Paperback.....We ship daily from our Bookshop.
