Does the above book cover for Tobias Smollett's The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle look like an invitation to a frolicking, sexually charged escapade all in the spirit of good, clean fun? That's precisely what the publisher of this edition is aiming for.
Much, much different from Thomas Rowlandson's original illustrations for this novel originally published in 1750, an artist who, according to V.S. Pritchett, shared the author's view of humans as little more than lumps of animal horror or stupidity, a gaggle of reeking, fat-stock swine done up in ribbons or breeches.
After reading the novel myself, I think Mr. Pritchett is a bit harsh and unfair regarding Tobias Smollet's assessment of human nature. To take one of many examples, early on in the tale, the author writes: "our young hero, who being now in the eleventh year of his age, had outgrown the expectation of all his family, and was remarkable for the beauty and elegance of his person." And later, as a young university student at Oxford: "he contracted a more intimate acquaintance with the classics, applied himself to the reading of history, improved his taste for painting and music, in which he made some progress; and, above all things, cultivated the study of natural philosophy."
One could read hundreds of pages from such modern-day authors as Irvine Welsh (like Smollett, also a Scotsman) or Martin Amis or Michel Houellebecq without ever happening upon passages of a man or woman described in terms of beauty and elegance or cultivating an intimate acquaintance with the classics, painting or philosophy. Actually, I'm being discreet here - in point of fact, none of the above contemporary authors come close to having their characters embody beauty and elegance or possess a desire to cultivate refined aesthetic sensibilities. Thus I feel Tobias Smollett has been given a bad rap.
In 1751, the year of publication of Peregrine Pickle, the state of literacy in England was such that only one in two men could read. The percentage of women was even lower: only one in three women could read. But for those who could read, they were treated to Tobias Smollett’s highly polished vocabulary and lengthy, elegant sentences. This to say, although the literacy rate was much lower than today, one is given the impression those who could read were reading at a higher level. By way of example, here is a "typical" sentence from the novel's 800 pages:
"He no sooner gave them to understand that he himself intended in a short time to visit that capital, that his mistress, with great precipitation, wished him a good journey, and affected to talk with indifference about the pleasures he would enjoy in France: but when he seriously assured Sophy, who asked if he was in earnest, that his uncle actually insisted upon his making a short tour, than the tears gushed in poor Emilia's eyes, and she was at great paints to conceal her concern, by observing that the tea was so scalding hot, as to make her eyes water."
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle is written within the tradition of the picaresque, where we follow the travels and travails, roguery and high jinx, loves and heartaches of one Peregrine “Perry” Pickle, an intellectually gifted and handsome young country gentleman beginning back when he was a mere babe. Scorned by his mean-spirited mother, disregarded by a milksop of a father, Perry is reared by the next door neighbor, Commodore Hawser Trunnion and his wife and two cronies before being sent off to school. And following his university years at Oxford, there’s journeys and adventures aplenty wherein Tobias Smollett is provided ample occasion to take aim at the bad manners, brutality, stupidity and horrors of society, or what passes for society and culture, in the eighteenth century.
Regarding stupidity, back when Perry was a baby, his mother “with her own hands plunged him headlong every morning in a tub-full of cold water.” As we come to learn in future chapters, Perry’s mother is cruel and hardhearted in the extreme. But Perry is a special kind of kid – case in point, with his morning emersion into ice cold water “instead of declining in point of health, seemed to acquire fresh vigour from every plunge.” And here’s one example of a common form of brutality, British style: when sent off to a boarding school at age five, the lad was “regularly flogged twice a day for eighteen months.” Beating children was both socially acceptable and legal and this ruthless, inhuman practice was not outlawed in England until 1999. And the popular imagination has those Brits as a refined, polished, gentile tea-sipping lot – completely ridiculous.
Tobias Smollett also recognized the influence of a good teacher with a sense of basic decency and humanity. Perry, age six, is sent off to another boarding school outside of London. The lad has the good fortune to come under the care of a Mr. Jennings, a perceptive teacher who, like all his students under his care, studied Perry’s temper and personality which was “strongly perverted by the absurd discipline he had undergone.”
The Scottish author is especially sensitive to the benefits of student-centered teaching such that Perry “recovers his feelings and his frequently found weeping by himself” (such teaching methods were foundational in John Dewey’s progressive philosophy of education). The supposed dunce has a complete turnaround – the new Perry is remarkable for his brightness; he can read English perfectly well, makes great progress in writing and develops the ability to speak French and becomes modestly proficient in Latin.
The above are but short snips that highlight a few episodes among hundreds a reader will engage with in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. And true to form, the novel contains some of the most colorful characters in all of literature - Commodore Hawser Trunnion, the old sea captain that takes Perry on as his ward, the sea captain's old shipmates, Lieutenant Jack Hatchway and Thomas Pipes, Perry's lover Emilia Gauntlet, his enemies and his friends, especially old, misanthropic Cadwallader Crabtree.
If you are up for a tale filled with zeal and zest along with comedy of the broad physical variety, then The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle is your book. And, besides which, you can tell your friends you've read an eighteenth century literary classic.
Tobias Smollett, 1721-1771
"His eyes rolled about, witnessing rage and distraction; he foamed at the mouth, stamped upon the ground with great violence, uttered incoherent imprecations against himself and all mankind, and would have sallied forth again he knew not whither, upon the same horse, which he had already almost killed with fatigue, had not his confidant found means to quiet the tumult of his thoughts and recall his reflection, by representing the condition of the poor animals, and advising him to hire fresh horses, and ride post across the country, to the village in the neighborhood of Mrs. Gauntlet's habitation, where they should infallibly intercept the daughter, provided they could get the start of her upon the road." -- Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
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