Introduction [to Tobias Smollett after 300 years: life, writing, reputation]

Jones, Richard J (2023). Introduction [to Tobias Smollett after 300 years: life, writing, reputation]. In: Jones, Richard J ed. Tobias Smollett after 300 years: life, writing, reputation. US and UK: Clemson University Press in association with Liverpool University Press, pp. 1–17.

URL: https://libraries.clemson.edu/press/books/tobias-s...

Abstract

This is the introduction to Tobias Smollett after 300 years, which offers a collection of essays on the Scottish writer Tobias Smollett (1721–1771). Drawing together the work of an international group of scholars, with a variety of critical approaches, the book examines aspects of Smollett’s life, writing and reputation on the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth.

The introduction begins by exploring some of the monuments that were raised (or were said to have been raised) to commemorate Smollett shortly after his death. It considers what they tell us about the way Smollett has been remembered and puts them alongside the first – and, then, later – collected editions of his works. The introduction offers a brief overview of Smollett’s writing and speculates about its boundaries and the kind of work in which he saw himself as engaged. It thus charts his reception from ‘poet’ and ‘historian’ to ‘novelist’ and outlines some of the ways we might think about his work today.

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