A FORGOTTEN BRITISH GREAT: SMELFUNGUS

Now languishing in undeserved obscurity, Tobias Smollett should be remembered for his series of edgy novels whose vicious wit, vivid characterisation and skewering of hypocrisy made him a firm favourite of — and influence on — Charles Dickens

JEREMY BLACK

SATIRISED AS “SMELFUNGUS” by Laurence Sterne in A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768), the first great Scottish writer of the Union, Tobias Smollett (1721-71), is now largely forgotten. Unlike Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Smollett’s picaresque talents have faded from public consciousness, and his poetry, journalism, drama and historical writing even more so. Moreover, if he was not so overlooked, he would now be cancelled because part of his family’s modest prosperity derived from the Caribbean wealth, including slaves, brought in with his wife. And yet Smollett left a series of excitable novels which provide an account of his Britain, one that is shown to be more edgy and problematic than is generally appreciated. Smollett’s scabrous content and often vicious style do not match modern sensibilities, but, as a…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, August - September 2023

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