"A SAVAGE REALIST WITH AN EYE FOR ECCENTRIC CHARACTER"

SMOLLETT, Tobias. The Miscellaneous Works of Tobias Smollett, M.D. Edinburgh: Silvester Doig, et al., 1817. Six volumes. Octavo, 20th-century three-quarter brown calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, raised bands, navy and burgundy morocco spine labels, marbled boards and endpapers. $2000.

Fifth edition, with engraved frontispiece portrait, handsomely bound.

"For inventiveness and diversity of episode, vivid particularlity of detail to the point of caricature and energy of style, Smollett is hardly excelled. He is to the 18th-century novel what Hogarth is to painting—a savage realist with an eye for eccentric character, which he discovers in all classes" (Baugh et al., 961-62). Includes the picaresque comedies Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Count Fathom, Sir Launcelot Greaves, and Humphry Clinker, along with Smollett's esteemed Travels through France and Italy and other writings. With a biography of Smollett by Robert Anderson.

A fine copy.