About this title: Smollett's last novel, written when he was mortally ill with tuberculosis, is an epistolary tale recounting the adventures of the Clinker family as they travel in the British Isles. It was published three months before his death.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Kessinger Publishing
Date Published: 07/2004
ISBN-13:9781417938247ISBN:1417938242
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 448 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Oxford university press: H. Milford, [London
Date Published: 1925
Description: Very Good. xx, 440 p. 16 cm. "First published in 1771. In "The world's classics it was first published in 1925 and reprinted in 1928 and 1930. " read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 1967
ISBN-13:9780140430219ISBN:0140430210
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Some cover wear with corner creases and a few ink marks on back; lightly tanned pages appear to be unmarked. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date Published: 1967
ISBN-13:9780140430219ISBN:0140430210
Description: Good. 1967 paperback good condition no writing or highlighting in book. has some wear to cover. Thanks for looking at our books we ship fast...William Thackeray called it the most laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writin. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New American Library
Date Published: 1960
Description: Good. Reprint of classic book. Binding tight. pages yellowing. Thanks for for looking at our books. We ship fast and we guarantee all books we sell. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780140430219ISBN:0140430210
Description: Very Good. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Moderate cover, edge wear, reading crease. Pages very good, no writing in text body. Smollett's last novel, written when he was mortally ill with tuberculosis, is an epistolary tale recounting the adventures of the Clinker family as they travel in the British Isles. It was published three months before his death. 414 pages. Few bookstore marks. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Acceptable. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
"What the heck is the 'epistolary' novel, and why would anyone in their right or wrong mind want to write in this genre in the first place?
Such is a dilemma which has haunted man for centuries. Since some consumptive medieval serf dipped his quill pen into a bottle of ink to scribe a letter for his master and thought "Hmm... would not this, forsooth, be the most jolly notion for a novel or book of some kind?" they have been hanging around like a pesky haemorrhoid one just cannot extinguish.
If only someone had been standing beside Tobias Smollett when he himself had a similar notion. For those in the dark, the epistolary form is a method of novel construction which involves stitching an endless stream of correspondences together into one literary whole, and hopefully, in the process, creating an engaging and lively story chock-full of intriguing characters.
'The Expedition of Humphry Clinker' was published in 1771 by this Scottish author, and reads like a series of disconnected, intercepting narratives which gradually insinuate themselves into one's brain; thus rendering the organ null, void and green and the receptors with such parochial goody-goodiness that it was as though the Black Death never happened. New paragraph.
The book was hurled at myself as part of my undergraduate degree circa 2005, which you did not need to know, but I am in the mood for sharing and I felt like indulging in some groundless braggadocio.
However, you shall be pleased to hear that the text did not move me in the slightest way. Ordinarily, I am not exactly the type who picks up 18th century Romantic texts written in obscure forms for enjoyment (who the heck is), but since I am marginally intelligent and open-minded enough to differentiate tat from quality, I have agonised over my decision to condemn fellow Scot Tobias Smollett to the deepest, darkest depths of literary Abaddon for all eternity. It might be a wise idea now, given this intensifying vitriol, to synopsise said text before we pull out the syntactical cleavers and set about such book-based butchery, so this I shall do now.
The text, at just under 350 pages, takes place up and down the vast reaches of the United Kingdom, with more focus on Scotland in particular, and the letters sent back and forth are from a handful of colourful characters drawn from the most fleshed-out eccentricities of folks in the Romantic era.
Matthew Bramble is the lead, of sorts, commanding his family throughout England, and the rest members of his family such as his lovesick sister Tabitha, his introspective niece Lydia and his pompous Oxbridge brother Jery. Tossed into the mix as well is one practically illiterate lady's-maid, whose spelling errors are used as a running joke throughout the text. Now, it is of course very easy for me sitting here, as a world-weary and crumpled bag of broken-down student blood and bones, to turn my nose up at the type of humour on offer on the book, simply because I do not recognise it for its idyllic, petit bourgeois quaintness. Well, to this I say, that I do recognise the humour, and that it is precisely part of the problem. Allow me to elucidate.
Well, perhaps we should outline the plot first. No, hang on a moment... there isn't one. Oh, that's right, it is just a series of letters going back and forth from pillar to post (pardon my mid-week pun). Well, allow me to sound off about what a real drag the epistolary form becomes. As clever and meticulous an act it must have been to keep up with all of the endless letters and the plots sewn into the fabric of these brief exchanges, it is really no different than just galloping back and forth between different characters, sketching in all of the exciting moments that have occurred in their lives since we saw them last.
In another respect, it is simply a form of bringing a character and a plot together, albeit in a tediously easy manner, and since it is a letter, there is complete license just to let the writer (of the letter) scribble on for as long Smollett thinks is absolutely necessary.
Perhaps I have just been beaten down with the gnarled, cast-iron glove of cynicism, but surely there are more exciting narrative styles in the world than this? There must be.
The novel is viewed among the pointy-heads as a satirical and witty account of the contemporary political scene, but I would have to take umbrage with this, because I am bad-tempered like that.
Although Smollett does display great wit, it is rare that this sort of humour manages to sustain the test of time, being just over 220 years old, and his cracks are 'pithy' and 'ribald' strictly in the most archaic sense of each word. Smollett did indeed suffer during the composition of this text, which is surely no reason for me to change my mind, but he did cling to it as his world away from the duller work he was exposed to and the ravages of his illness, which makes me feel pity if not warmth and affection.
His skill lies in pinpointing all of the navel-gazing foibles of his characters, especially their own individual sense of victimhood, from the hypochondriac Lydia, right through to the histrionic yearning of Tabitha. His skill lies in this sort of hyperbole, and although he might have pinned accurately all the shifts in the political and cultural climate of Britain at the time, he rarely brings it alive within the space of his letters.
Do I have anything positive to say about this text at all? Well, yes, is the answer. My main gripe with the book is that the epistolary form does not really work, and makes the overall work tedious, repetitive and in the end, a real chore to read. However, it is impossible to overlook the style and eloquence of Smollett's prose.
His work has been compared to that of Jonathan Swift, if more scatological in nature, and there are moments here that conjure up, if not Gulliver's Travels, then certainly the pathos and acerbity of 'A Description Of A City Shower' a century earlier. For those interested in writing of the Romantic era, Smollett does have a much more accessible and generous style than many of the major writers then, and the historical information does in fact seem indispensable for the scholar of this epoch. Since it is his also his most fondly remembered book, and the Oxford's World Classics edition comes with some fine notes from Lewis M. Knapp, I would begrudgingly recommend it nevertheless. I feel awful now. Sorry, Tobias..."
"I was not expecting to like this work, or any 18th Century Epistolary novel featuring a character with a funny name. I just imagined some goofy British person stealing chickens and being a wag and angering the constable and complaining about Bolingbroke and eating bangers and mash. And yet I ended up loving it. Its an interesting melange of "authors" getting together to describe an expedition that starts at the apparent healing waters of Bath, moves to Scotland, and ends in London. The more proper title should be "The Life and Thoughts and Expeditions of Matthew Bramble," because the grumpy hypochondriac patriarch steals the show with his observations and prescribed opinions about the way the world should work, why it doesn't, why it won't, and those damn young people.
Humphry Clinker doesn't show up until about 70 pages, and he's a noble savage type who keeps reappearing and eventually joins Bramble's caravan. Bramble's alter-ego is his nephew, Jeremy Melford, an educated type who constantly reminds you of the objective reserve he thinks he has. Jery, however, is incapable of experiencing anything worthwhile, and his off-handed remarks only barely hide his lurking nature. It's great stuff seeing it from the two perspectives, and the epistolary form offers dual insights on situations that work brilliantly as a narrative.
Although set mainly in England, it really comes alive in Scotland. Full of historical nuggets: the big business even in those days of selling ginseng to the visitors of the Roman baths in the city of Bath; the growth and acceptance/toleration of Methodism (Humph Clink himself); the recognition of the specific symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome etc etc
'All cats look grey in the dark': if you spot this quote, you'll know to what it refers!"
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
