Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye.Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
Ode to Independence, strophe 1.
Writing is all a lottery -- I have been a loser by the works of the greatest men of the age.
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker|The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, (1771).
Thy fatal shafts unerring move,I bow before thine altar, Love!
The Adventures of Roderick Random|The Adventures of Roderick Random (1848), Chapter xl, reported in Bartlett's Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Tobias George Smollett was a
ScottishScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and author. He was best known for his
picaresque novelThe picaresque novel is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society...
s, such as
The Adventures of Roderick RandomThe Adventures of Roderick Random is a picaresque novel by Tobias Smollett, first published in 1748. It is partially based on Smollett's experience as a naval-surgeon’s mate in the British Navy, especially during Battle of Cartagena de Indias in 1741...
(1748) and
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751), which influenced later novelists such as
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
.
Life
Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of
RentonRenton is a small district in central Scotland. In the 2001 National Census it had a population of 2,138.Renton is particularly famous for the village's association football side. Renton F.C...
, in present-day
West DunbartonshireWest Dunbartonshire is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. Bordering onto the west of the City of Glasgow, containing many of Glasgow's commuter towns and villages as well as the city's suburbs, West Dunbartonshire also borders onto Argyll and Bute, Stirling, East...
, Scotland. He was the son of a judge and land-owner, and was educated at the
University of GlasgowThe University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
, qualifying as a
surgeonSurgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
. His career in medicine came second to his literary ambitions, and in 1739 he went to
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to seek his fortune as a dramatist. Unsuccessful, he obtained a commission as a naval surgeon on and travelled to
JamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, where he settled down for several years. In 1742 he served as a surgeon during the disastrous campaign to
capture CartagenaThe Battle of Cartagena de Indias was an amphibious military engagement between the forces of Britain under Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon and those of Spain under Admiral Blas de Lezo. It took place at the city of Cartagena de Indias in March 1741, in present-day Colombia...
. On his return, he set up practice in
Downing StreetDowning Street in London, England has for over two hundred years housed the official residences of two of the most senior British cabinet ministers: the First Lord of the Treasury, an office now synonymous with that of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Second Lord of the Treasury, an...
and married a wealthy Jamaican heiress, Anne Lascelles, in 1747. They had a daughter Elizabeth (only daughter) who died aged 15 years about 1762. He was the fourth son of Archibald Smollett of
BonhillBonhill is a town in the Vale of Leven area of West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It is sited on the Eastern bank of the River Leven, on the opposite bank from the larger town of Alexandria.-History:...
, who died about 1726 and Barbara Cunningham who died about 1766. He had a brother, Capt. James Smollet and a sister Jean Smollett who married Alexander Telfair of Symington, Ayrshire. Jean succeeded to Bonhill after the death of her cousin-german, Mr. Commissary Smollett and she resumed her maiden name of Smollett in 1780. They lived in St. John Street off Canongate, Edinburgh and had a son who was in the Military.
His first published work was a poem about the
Battle of CullodenThe Battle of Culloden was the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Taking place on 16 April 1746, the battle pitted the Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart against an army commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, loyal to the British government...
entitled "The Tears of Scotland", but it was
The Adventures of Roderick Random which made his name. It was modelled on Le Sage's
Gil BlasGil Blas is a picaresque novel by Alain-René Lesage published between 1715 and 1735. It is considered to be the last masterpiece of the picaresque genre.-Plot summary:...
, and was published in 1748. Smollett followed it up by finally getting his
tragedyTragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
,
The Regicide, published, though it was never performed. In 1750, Smollett took his MD degree in Aberdeen, and also travelled to
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where he obtained material for his second novel,
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, another big success. Having lived for a short time in Bath, he returned to London and published
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count FathomThe Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom is a novel by Tobias Smollett first published in 1753. It was Smollett's third novel and met with less success than his two previous more picaresque tales. The central character is a villainous dandy who cheats, swindles and philanders his way across...
in 1753. He was now recognised as a leading literary figure, and associated with the likes of
David GarrickDavid Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
,
Laurence SterneLaurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
,
Oliver GoldsmithOliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...
and
Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
, whom he famously nicknamed "that Great
ChamKhan is an originally Altaic and subsequently Central Asian title for a sovereign or military ruler, widely used by medieval nomadic Turko-Mongol tribes living to the north of China. 'Khan' is also seen as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289...
of literature".
http://www.bartleby.com/81/7533.html In 1755 he published a translation of
Miguel de CervantesMiguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
's
Don Quixote, which he revised in 1761. In 1756, he became editor of
The Critical ReviewThe Critical Review was first edited by Tobias Smollett from 1756 to 1763, and was contributed to by Samuel Johnson, David Hume, John Hunter, and Oliver Goldsmith, until 1817....
.
Smollett then began what he regarded as his major work,
A Complete History of England, from 1757 to 1765. During this period he served a short prison sentence for libel, and produced another novel,
The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot GreavesThe Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, a novel by Tobias Smollett, was published in 1760 in the monthly paper The British Magazine...
(1760). Having suffered the loss of a daughter, he went abroad with his wife, and the result was
Travels through France and ItalyTravels through France and Italy is travel literature by Tobias Smollett published in 1766.After suffering the loss of his only child, 15-year-old Elizabeth, in April of 1763, Smollett left England in June of that year. Together with his wife, he traveled across France to Nice. In the autumn of the...
(1766). He also wrote
The History and Adventures of an AtomThe History and Adventures of an Atom, by Tobias Smollett, is a novel that savagely satirises English politics during the Seven Years' War....
(1769), which gave his view of
British politics during the Seven Years' WarThe Kingdom of Great Britain was one of the major participants in the Seven Years' War which lasted between 1756 and 1763. Britain emerged from the war as the world's leading colonial power having gained a number of new territories at the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and established itself as the...
under the guise of a tale from ancient Japan.
He also re-visited Scotland and this visit helped inspire his last novel,
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), published in the year of his death. He had for some time been ailing from an intestinal disorder, and had sought a cure at Bath and eventually retired to Italy, where he is buried at Leghorn (
LivornoLivorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...
).
Monuments
There is a monument to his memory beside Renton Primary School,
DunbartonshireDunbartonshire or the County of Dumbarton is a lieutenancy area and registration county in the west central Lowlands of Scotland lying to the north of the River Clyde. Until 1975 it was a county used as a primary unit of local government with its county town and administrative centre at the town...
,
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, on which there is a Latin inscription composed by Dr. Johnson. The area around the monument was improved in 2002, with an explanatory plaque.
There is also a plaque to his temporary residence in
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
just off the
Royal MileThe Royal Mile is a succession of streets which form the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland.As the name suggests, the Royal Mile is approximately one Scots mile long, and runs between two foci of history in Scotland, from Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Castle...
at the head of St John's Street. This states that he resided here in the house of his sister, Mrs. Telfer, for the summer of 1766. A second plaque (dating the building at 1758, making it relatively new at that time) states that he "stayed here occasionally" implying more than one visit, which way well be true if it was the house of his sister.
External links