This is the definitive scholarly edition of Tobias Smollett's first novel, widely regarded as one of his two masterpieces, the other being "The Expedition of Humphry Clinker." "Roderick Random" was also, in its time, the chief rival to Henry Fielding's comic novel "Tom Jones."

Surging with verbal, sexual, and martial energy, " The Adventures of Roderick Random" opens a window on life, love, and war in the eighteenth century. The hero battles his way from poverty and neglect to make his mark as a doctor, writer, fighter, and lover. His adventures take us across the world, from England and France to the Caribbean, Africa, and Latin America. One of the first truly global novels, it casts light on nearly every aspect of its time--imperialism, gender relations, slavery, urban life, colonial warfare, commerce, politics, the professions, high society, and the Hogarthian underworld.

Complete with illustrations and comprehensive annotations, this is the first edition to include Smollett's long-forgotten antiwar pamphlet, "An Account of the Expedition against Carthagene in the West Indies," which was drawn from his own war experience and on which key sections of the novel are based. The editors also provide a detailed biographical and historical introduction, based on the most recent scholarship, mapping the novel's enormous impact in its own time and its influence on the history of litera-ture over the centuries since.

Comprises a variety of topics, from prostitution to flatulence, and paints a picture of the real and imaginative worlds inhabited by the people of eighteenth-century Britain. This title features a volume dedicated to homosexuality. It is intended for students of eighteenth century culture, queer theory, history of sexuality and book history.

Comprises a variety of topics, from prostitution to flatulence, and paints a picture of the real and imaginative worlds inhabited by the people of eighteenth-century Britain. This title features a volume dedicated to homosexuality. It is intended for students of eighteenth century culture, queer theory, history of sexuality and book history.

Comprises a variety of topics, from prostitution to flatulence, and paints a picture of the real and imaginative worlds inhabited by the people of eighteenth-century Britain. This title features a volume dedicated to homosexuality. It is intended for students of eighteenth century culture, queer theory, history of sexuality and book history.

Comprises a variety of topics, from prostitution to flatulence, and paints a picture of the real and imaginative worlds inhabited by the people of eighteenth-century Britain. This title features a volume dedicated to homosexuality. It is intended for students of eighteenth century culture, queer theory, history of sexuality and book history.

Comprises a variety of topics, from prostitution to flatulence, and paints a picture of the real and imaginative worlds inhabited by the people of eighteenth-century Britain. This title features a volume dedicated to homosexuality. It is intended for students of eighteenth century culture, queer theory, history of sexuality and book history.

Comprises a variety of topics, from prostitution to flatulence, and paints a picture of the real and imaginative worlds inhabited by the people of eighteenth-century Britain. This title features a volume dedicated to homosexuality. It is intended for students of eighteenth century culture, queer theory, history of sexuality and book history.

"Miscellanies in Prose and Verse" (1727-32) contained contributions by three of the leading satirists of the early 18th century, published at the time when all three were at the height of their powers. This edition contains the contributions of Alexander Pope, Jonathon Swift and John Gay.

"Miscellanies in Prose and Verse" (1727-32) contained contributions by three of the leading satirists of the early 18th century, published at the time when all three were at the height of their powers. This edition contains the contributions of Alexander Pope, Jonathon Swift and John Gay.

"Miscellanies in Prose and Verse" (1727-32) contained contributions by three of the leading satirists of the early 18th century, published at the time when all three were at the height of their powers. This edition contains the contributions of Alexander Pope, Jonathon Swift and John Gay.

"Miscellanies in Prose and Verse" (1727-32) contained contributions by three of the leading satirists of the early 18th century, published at the time when all three were at the height of their powers. This edition contains the contributions of Alexander Pope, Jonathon Swift and John Gay.

This set reprints many of the 18th century's most notorious works, including eight from "The Fifteen Plagues of a Maiden-Head" (1707), that resulted in highly publicized court battles and in some cases helped shape laws on censorship that survived into modernity.

This set reprints many of the 18th century's most notorious works, including eight from "The Fifteen Plagues of a Maiden-Head" (1707), that resulted in highly publicized court battles and in some cases helped shape laws on censorship that survived into modernity.

Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1727-32) contained contributions by three of the leading satirists of the early 18th century, published at the time when all three were at the height of their powers. The set of the Miscellanies from which the present edition is taken has similar annotations, possibly in Swift's hand, but almost certainly from a Swift source. Unlike the set in the Rothschild library, it attributes writings to Pope, Gay and Arbuthnot. The allusions to Swift largely coincide with those that are present in the Rothschild copy. this edition contains a full analysis of the attributions from the two original copies.

This set reprints many of the 18th century's most notorious works, including eight from "The Fifteen Plagues of a Maiden-Head" (1707), that resulted in highly publicized court battles and in some cases helped shape laws on censorship that survived into modernity.

This set reprints many of the 18th century's most notorious works, including eight from "The Fifteen Plagues of a Maiden-Head" (1707), that resulted in highly publicized court battles and in some cases helped shape laws on censorship that survived into modernity.

This set reprints many of the 18th century's most notorious works, including eight from "The Fifteen Plagues of a Maiden-Head" (1707), that resulted in highly publicized court battles and in some cases helped shape laws on censorship that survived into modernity.

Although scholars of the British 18th century have become increasingly attuned to questions of sexuality, corporeality, and legalism, they have not heretofore had easy access to one of the period's richest funds of data: the erotica and pornography that permeated the culture. This set reprints many of the period's most notorious works, including eight from The Fifteen Plagues of a Maiden-Head (1707) to Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1786(?)-93) that resulted in highly publicized court battles and in some instances helped shape laws on censorship that survived into modernity. As they did in the 18th-century bookshop, homosexual and heterosexual works intermingle, alongside of works that claim legal, medical, or political legitimacy, and works that pretend to nothing but prurience. Virtually all the works have been out of print since the 18th century. Each volume includes an introduction, individual headnotes, facsimiles of the texts, and annotations, and the first volume includes a general introduction.

This is the first edition to assemble all of the earliest known works by Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), one of the most influential authors in the English tradition. Richardson's exercises in conduct-writing, religious controversialism, anti-theatrical polemic, occasional verse, literary criticism - and his popular and surprisingly revealing edition of Aesop's Fables - resonate throughout his later work while claiming ample legitimacy of their own. Readers familiar with only Pamela, Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison will gain a fresh appreciation of the genesis of and the historical and cultural complexities at work in these famous novels, and readers new to Richardson will encounter an agile writer who invites closer consideration. A lengthy introduction situates the constituent works in Richardson's career as well as in the period more broadly, and the extensive textual apparatus records the bibliographical histories of the texts and their treatment by their present editor.

This is the definitive scholarly edition of Tobias Smollett's first novel, widely regarded as one of his two masterpieces, the other being "The Expedition of Humphry Clinker." "Roderick Random" was also, in its time, the chief rival to Henry Fielding's comic novel "Tom Jones."

Surging with verbal, sexual, and martial energy, " The Adventures of Roderick Random" opens a window on life, love, and war in the eighteenth century. The hero battles his way from poverty and neglect to make his mark as a doctor, writer, fighter, and lover. His adventures take us across the world, from England and France to the Caribbean, Africa, and Latin America. One of the first truly global novels, it casts light on nearly every aspect of its time--imperialism, gender relations, slavery, urban life, colonial warfare, commerce, politics, the professions, high society, and the Hogarthian underworld.

Complete with illustrations and comprehensive annotations, this is the first edition to include Smollett's long-forgotten antiwar pamphlet, "An Account of the Expedition against Carthagene in the West Indies," which was drawn from his own war experience and on which key sections of the novel are based. The editors also provide a detailed biographical and historical introduction, based on the most recent scholarship, mapping the novel's enormous impact in its own time and its influence on the history of litera-ture over the centuries since.

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.

This picaresque tale, first published in 1751, was Tobias Smollett’s second novel. Following the fortunes and misfortunes of the egotistical dandy Peregrine Pickle, the novel is written as a series of brief adventures with every chapter typically describing a new escapade. The novel begins with Peregrine as a young country gentleman. His mother rejects him, as do his aloof father and his dissolute, spiteful brother. Commodore Hawser Trunnion takes Peregrine under his care and raises him. Peregrine’s upbringing, education at Oxford and journey to France, his debauchery, bankruptcy, jailing and succession to his father’s fortune and his final repentance and marriage to his beloved Emilia all provide scope for Smollett’s comic and caustic perspective on the Europe of his times. As John P. Zomchick and George S. Rousseau note in the introduction, “by contrasting the genteel and the common, the sophisticated and the primal, Smollett conveys forcefully the way it felt to be alive in the middle of the eighteenth century.� The introduction provides an overview of the composition and publication history of Peregrine Pickle and discusses the novel’s critical reception over time by such figures as Lady Luxborough, Sir Walter Scott, Joseph Conrad and George Orwell. The text of the novel uses the first edition of 1751 as copy-text while recording the second edition’s substantive variants. Included are illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson, Richard Corbould and George Cruikshank, as well as frontispieces designed by, and engraved in the style of, Henry Fuseli. A complete textual apparatus concludes the volume.