Full Description
Tobias Smollett travelled through Europe with his wife in 1763-65 in a journey designed to recover his mental and physical health after the death of their daughter. The resulting travel narrative provoked controversy and anger in the eighteenth century, when it was often negatively compared to Laurence Sterne's fictional European travels in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Unlike Sterne's sensitive hero, Smollett is argumentative, acerbic, and often contemptuous of local customs.
In addition to a critical introduction, this edition provides extensive annotation and appendices with material on Smollett's correspondence, the book's reception in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, related travel writing, and Smollett's infamous satirization as "Smelfungus" in Sterne's A Sentimental Journey.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Tobias Smollett: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Travels through France and Italy
Appendix A: Selections from Smollett's Correspondence
To Richard Smith Esq. (8 May 1763)
To Dr. William Hunter (14 June 1763)
To Dr. William Hunter (11 July 1763)
To Francis Seymour Conway, Earl of Hertford (11 July 1763)
List of Books Prepared by Smollett and Sent with the Letter to Lord Hertford
To Alexander Reid (3 August 1763)
To Dr. William Hunter (11 August 1763)
To Dr. William Hunter (6 February 1764)
To Dr. John Moore (15 July 1765)
To Dr. John Moore (13 November 1765)
Appendix B: Contemporary Reviews
From the St. James's Chronicle (8 May 1766)
From The Critical Review (May 1766)
From The Monthly Review (June 1766)
From The Royal Magazine (May 1766)
From The London Magazine (May 1766)
From the Journal Encyclopédique (August/September1766)
From the Gazette Littéraire de l'Europe (15 February1766)
From the Bibliothèque des Sciences et des Beaux Arts(1766)
Appendix C: The Malevolent Philip Thicknesse
From Philip Thicknesse, Observations on the Customs and Manners of the French Nation (1766)
From the Notice of Thicknesse's Observations on the Customs and Manners of the French Nation,The Critical Review (December 1766)
From Philip Thicknesse, Useful Hints to Those Who Make the Tour of France (1768)
From Philip Thicknesse, A Year's Journey through France, and Part of Spain (1777)
Appendix D: Laurence Sterne and "the learned Smelfungus"
From [Laurence Sterne], A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768)
From Letters of Laurence Sterne
To Lady D[acre?] (9 July 1762)
To Robert Foley (14 August 1762)
To Robert Hay Drummond (7 May 1763)
To Mrs. F[enton?] (1 February 1764)
Appendix E: From Samuel Sharp, Letters from Italy (1766)
Cicisbei
Italian Inns
The Arts of Rome
Italian Gardens
The English on the Grand Tour
Appendix F: Late-Eighteenth-Century Responses to Smollett
From Thomas McMahon, The Candor and Good-Nature of Englishmen Exemplified (1777)
From Alexander Jardine, Letters from Barbary, France, Spain, Portugal, &c. (1788)
From Francis Garden, Travelling Memorandums (1791)
From Sir James Edward Smith, A Sketch of a Tour on the Continent (1793)
Appendix G: Nineteenth-Century Responses to Smollett
From The Port-Folio (November 1811)
From Leigh Hunt, Correspondence (1862)
From Sir Walter Scott, "Prefatory Memoir to Smollett" (1 September 1824)
From W.J. Prowse, "Smollett at Nice" (April 1870)
From Thomas Seccombe, "Smelfungus Goes South" (August 1901)
Appendix H: Contexts
Extract of a letter from Paris, Public Advertiser (1 November 1763)
From Dodsley's Annual Register (1762)
Letter from George Bassmore to The London Magazine (September 1766)
Extract of a letter from a "Plain Englishman," The Gentleman's Magazine (1787)
Appendix I: The Venus de' Medici in Context
Appendix J: A Bookseller in Sittingbourne
Select Bibliography
Index
