"A SAVAGE REALIST WITH AN EYE FOR ECCENTRIC CHARACTER"
SMOLLETT, Tobias. Works. London: Gibbings & Company, 1895. Twelve volumes. 12mo, original three-quarter olive green morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt. $1600.
Limited “Bonhill Edition” of Smollett’s novels, one of 250 sets produced. Illustrated with numerous plates by Frank Richards and specially bound for subscribers.
"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 Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Count Fathom, Sir Launcelot Greaves, and Humphry Clinker. The text for this edition was prepared by the noted scholar George Saintsbury.
A lovely set.