This new edition brings to life Tobias Smollett's fourth novel,
"The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves." No annotated
edition of the work existed before the second half of the twentieth
century, and this comprehensive edition by Robert Folkenflik and
Barbara Laning Fitzpatrick features more accurate text as well as
scrupulous textual and critical information. Also included in the
detailed introduction is a unique examination of Sir Launcelot
Greaves, the first illustrated serial novel, in relation to the
engravings by Anthony Walker.
"Sir Launcelot Greaves" was a groundbreaking novel for Smollett.
Published in "British Magazine" beginning in January 1760, it was
the first major work by an English novelist to have been written
specifically for serial publication. The novel, Smollett's
shortest, differs stylistically from his previous works. The most
attractive of his heroes, Sir Launcelot is virtuous and strange,
and he is surrounded by a Smollettian menagerie whose various
jargons are part of this novel's linguistic virtuosity and satire.
Sir Launcelot's character is an English naturalization of Quixote.
Although Sir Launcelot, unlike Quixote, is not the object of the
author's satire, an idealistic madness is central to both
characters. In Smollett's work the theme of madness is integral to
the relationship between self and society as the work ponders both
the constitution of madness and the alternatives to revenge.
"Sir Launcelot Greaves," though not Smollett's most heralded
work, has not received the recognition it deserves. Folkenflik and
Fitzpatrick present a definitive edition that will be appreciated
by scholars and lovers of eighteenth-century literature.
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