The Adventures of Telemachus is the first critical edition of Tobias Smollett's 1776 translation of Bishop Fenelon's 1699 "mirror for princes," written especially for Duc de Burgogne, heir presumptive to Louis XIV.

Both in its original French and its many translations, The Adventures of Telemachus was one of the most popular and revered works of the eighteenth century. There were more than ten English prose and poetry versions, including this masterful prose translation by Smollett. Known for his novels Roderick Random and The Expedition of Humphry...

This authoritative textual edition presents Tobias Smollett's translation of Cervantes's Don Quixote in the form most faithful to Smollett's own intentions. It includes Francis Hayman's twenty-eight illustrations engraved for the original edition, Smollett's explanatory notes, and his prefatory "Life of Cervantes."

Smollett's Don Quixote first appeared in 1755 and was for many years the most popular English-language version of Cervantes's masterpiece. However, soon after the start of the nineteenth century, its reputation began to suffer. Rival translators, literary hucksters,...

This is the first and only scholarly edition of Sir John Hawkins's Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., a work that has not been widely available in complete form for more than two hundred years. Published in 1787, some four years before James Boswell's biography of Johnson, Hawkins's Life complements, clarifies, and often corrects numerous aspects of Boswell's Life.

Samuel Johnson (1709-84) is the most significant English writer of the second half of the eighteenth century; indeed, this period is widely known as the Age of Johnson. Hawkins was Johnson's friend and...

Tobias Smollett, in the preface to his first novel, The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), acknowledges the influence of Alain RenE Le Sage's L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (1715-35 in four volumes) on his work. By far the most successful of "useful and entertaining" romances, Smollett writes, Gil Blas describes "the knavery and foibles of life, with infinite humour and sagacity." "The following sheets," he adds significantly, "I have modeled on his plan."

Smollett's translation of Gil Blas appeared nine months after the publication of Roderick...

This is the first and only scholarly edition of Sir John Hawkins s Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., a work that has not been widely available in complete form for more than two hundred years. Published in 1787, some four years before James Boswell's biography of Johnson, Hawkins's Life complements, clarifies, and often corrects numerous aspects of Boswell's Life.

Samuel Johnson (1709-84) is the most significant English writer of the second half of the eighteenth century; indeed, this period is widely known as the Age of Johnson. Hawkins was Johnson's friend and...

The first novel by a major English writer that is devoted to a thoroughgoing portrait of villainy, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom chronicles the life of an aberrant criminal character. Filled with striking satiric thrusts at the legal, medical, and military establishments of mid-eighteenth-century Europe and England, the novel reveals Tobias Smollett's capacities as a commentator on contemporary life.

First published in 1753, Ferdinand Count Fathom is an experimental work that explores the relations between history and fiction and introduces, for the first...

Tobias Smollett, in the preface to his first novel, The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), acknowledges the influence of Alain RenE Le Sage's L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (1715-35 in four volumes) on his work. By far the most successful of "useful and entertaining" romances, Smollett writes, Gil Blas describes "the knavery and foibles of life, with infinite humour and sagacity." "The following sheets," he adds significantly, "I have modeled on his plan."

Smollett's translation of Gil Blas appeared nine months after the publication of Roderick...

The Adventures of Telemachus is the first critical edition of Tobias Smollett's 1776 translation of Bishop Fenelon's 1699 "mirror for princes," written especially for Duc de Burgogne, heir presumptive to Louis XIV.

Both in its original French and its many translations, The Adventures of Telemachus was one of the most popular and revered works of the eighteenth century. There were more than ten English prose and poetry versions, including this masterful prose translation by Smollett. Known for his novels Roderick Random and The Expedition of Humphry...

This is the first reprinting since the eighteenth century--and the first scholarly edition--of Tobias Smollett s translation of The Devil upon Crutches. First published in France in 1707 as Le Diable boiteux, Alain Rene Le Sage s novel relates the picaresque wanderings of Asmodeus, a refined, likable but decrepit devil, and Zambullo, his newfound mortal companion.

After Zambullo releases Asmodeus from a bottle, the two embark on a flight above the rooftops of Madrid. Peeking into houses, prisons, palaces, and even tombs, Zambullo witnesses one incident of treachery and...

In The History and Adventures of an Atom, a London haberdasher relates extraordinary tales of ancient Japan as dictated to him by an omniscient atom that has lived within the bodies of great figures of state. Intended for the instruction of British ministers, the work is a savage allegory of England during the Seven Years War (1756-1763), draping kings and politicians, domestic and foreign affairs in an intricately detailed, endlessly allusive veil of satire.

Lacing his commentary with vitriol, Tobias Smollett gives fantastic expression in the Atom to many of the concerns...