Tobias Smollett was educated at Glasgow University; he emigrated to London in 1739 to practice as a surgeon. As such he served in the navy (1741-43) before establishing a practice in Downing Street, London (M.D. 1750). Smollett's first novel, Roderick Random (1748), established his literary reputation. He traveled to France (1750), reviewed for the Monthly Review (1751-52) and was editor of The Critical Review (1756-63). In failing health, Smollett departed for Italy in 1768, where he died shortly after composing Humphry Clinker, his most successful novel.
TEXT RECORDS:
1751[Burlesque Elegy.]
1771The Expedition of Humphry Clinker.
PUBLICATIONS:
Advice: a satire; Reproof: a satire. 1746.
The adventures of Gil Blas [trans.] 1748, 1759.
The adventures of Roderick Random. 2 vols, 1748.
The regicide, or James the First of Scotland: a tragedy. 1749.
The adventures of Peregrin Pickle. 4 vols, 1751.
An essay on the external use of water in a letter. 1752.
The adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. 2 vols, 1753.
Select essays on commerce, agriculture, mines... [trans.] 1754.
The history and adventures of Don Quixote [trans.] 2 vols, 1755.
The reprisal, or the tars of Old England: a comedy. 1757.
Works of M. de Voltaire, translated. 38 vols, 1761-74.
The life and adventures of Lancelot Greaves. 2 vols, 1762.
The history and adventures of an atom. 2 vols, 1769.
A complete history of England. 1757-65.
Travels through France and Italy. 2 vols, 1766.
The expedition of Humphry Clinker. 3 vols, 1771.
Ode to independence. 1773.
Select works. 8 vols, 1775-56.
Miscellaneous works. 6 vols, 1790.
Works. 8 vols, 1797.
Letters, ed. Knapp. 1970.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
Scottish
Presbyterian
Glasgow University
Aberdeen University
M.D.
physician
editor
poet
novelist
historian
essayist
The Critical Review
The Monthly Review
British Magazine
Dr. John Armstrong
Robert Dodsley
David Garrick
Oliver Goldsmith
David Mallet
Samuel Richardson
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; DLB.
William Rider, Living Authors of Great Britain (1762); David Erskine Baker, Companion to the Play-House (1764); Pearch, Supplement to Dodsley's Collection (1768-83); "Memoirs of Smollett" Universal Magazine 76 (February 1775) 81-86 [portrait]; "Some Account of the Life and Writings of Smollett" Westminster Magazine 3 (May 1775) 225-28 [portrait]; "Life and Writings of Smollett" Weekly Magazine or Edinburgh Amusement 28 (8 June 1775) 329-32; "Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. Smollett" Annual Register for 1775 (1775) 45-50; "Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); Bell's Fugitive Poetry (1789-97); Lounger's Common-Place Book (1792; 1796) 2:167-74; Roach's Beauties of the Poets (1794); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); "Some Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. Tobias Smollett" Massachusetts Magazine 8 (September 1796) 500-04; "Account of Dr. Tobias Smollett" Scots Magazine 58 (November 1796) 725-27; Alexander Campbell, Introduction to the History of Poetry in Scotland (1798); "Letters to Dr. Smollet, now first published" European Magazine 45 (March-April 1804) 181-85, 257-59; letters to Tobias Smollett, Monthly Magazine 19 (May-June 1805) 363-64, 463-64; Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); "Critical Comments on Sterne, Smollet, and Fielding" Port Folio [Philadelphia] S3 6 (November 1811) 412-31; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); "Smollett's Poems" Port Folio S3 1 (June 1813) 613-14; "Smollett's Tomb" Literary Gazette (12 September 1818) 590-91; Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); letters between Smollett and Richardson, Monthly Magazine 48 (November 1819) 326-28; John Aikin, Select Works of the British Poets (1820); Joseph Robertson, Lives of Scottish Poets (1821-22); Henry Francis Cary, "Tobias Smollett" in London Magazine 6 (October 1822) 327-35; "Memoirs of Tobias Smollet" Port Folio [Philadelphia] S4 15 (February 1823) 80-105 [from Cary]; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Biographical Magazine 1 (1829) [portrait]; Robert Chambers, revised Thomson, Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (1832-35; 1870); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); William Anderson, Scottish Nation (1859-63); Andrew R. Bonar, Poets and Poetry of Scotland (1864); Ralston Inglis, Dramatic Writers of Scotland (1868); George Barnett Smith, "Tobias Smollett" Gentleman's Magazine NS 14 (1875); James Grant Wilson, Poetry of Scotland (1876); David Hannay, Life of Tobias George Smollett (1887); Austin Dobson, "The Topography of Humphrey Clinker" in Eighteenth-Century Vignettes (1892-96); George Eyre-Todd, in Scottish Poetry of the Eighteenth Century (1896); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Howard S. Buck, Smollett as Poet (1927); L. M. Ellison, "Elizabethan Drama and the Works of Smollett" PMLA 44 (1929) 842-62; Lewis M. Knapp, "Smollett's Verses and their Musical Settings in the Eighteenth Century" MLN 46 (1931) 224-32; Howard S. Buck, "Smollett and Akenside" JEGP 31 (1932) 10-26; L. F. Powell, "William Huggins and Tobias Smollett" Modern Philology 34 (1936) 179-81; Lewis Mansfield Knapp, Tobias Smollett, Doctor of Men and Manners (1949); Milton A. Goldberg, Smollett and the Scottish School (1959); R. D. Spector, Tobias George Smollett (1968); Valentine, British Establishment (1970); Butt, OHEL (1979); Francesco Cordasco, Tobias George Smollett: A Bibliographical Guide (1979).
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