Tobias Smollett, The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves

Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.05: English Writing and Culture from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, 1689-1789.
Vol. editors: Paul Baines (University of Liverpool), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Pat Rogers (University of South Florida), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1762

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Tobias Smollett's fourth novel, Sir Launcelot Greaves, is a contemporary take on what was, for the eighteenth century, the single most influential work of European fiction, Don Quixote (1605-15). The knight of Smollett's title is a Yorkshire country gentleman - importantly a baronet, rather than a nobleman - son of the landowner, Sir Everhard. Sir Launcelot Greaves opens with a strikingly successful opening chapter, in which a number of the novel's characters are driven together by a storm at an inn on the Great North Road. They include the merchant-navy man, Capt Crowe – whose nautical language recalls both Roderick Random's Tom Bowling and Peregrine Pickle's Commodore Trunnion his nephew, the …

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1177 words

Citation: Ross, Ian Campbell. "The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 September 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=363, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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