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First Irish Edition. Two Volume (complete set). Small Octavo (10.4 cm wide x 17.54 cm high). Volume I: 256 pages / Volume II: 245 pages. Hardcover / Original, full leather with original spinelabels. Endpaper of Volume I missing. Binding firm but stronger rubbed. Interior very good. From the library of Richard Meade (Ballymartle), with the name "Susanna Meade" to the titlepage of both volumes. Tobias George Smollett (bapt. 19 March 1721 17 September 1771) was a Scottish writer and surgeon. He was best known for writing picaresque novels such as The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), which influenced later generations of British novelists, including Charles Dickens. His novels were liberally altered by contemporary printers; an authoritative edition of each was edited by Dr O. M. Brack Jr and others. Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of Renton in present-day West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, and baptised on 19 March 1721 (his birth date is estimated as 3 days previously). He was the fourth son of Archibald Smollett of Bonhill, a judge and landowner, laird of Bonhill, living at Dalquhurn on the River Leven, who died about 1726, when Smollett was just five years old. His mother Barbara Smollett née Cunningham brought the family up there, until she died about 1766. He had a brother, Captain James Smollett, and a sister, Jean Smollett, who married Alexander Telfair of Symington, Ayrshire. Jean succeeded to Bonhill after the death of her cousin-german, Sir James Smollett, and resumed her maiden name of Smollett in 1780. They lived in St John Street off the Canongate, and had a son who was in the military. Smollett was educated at Dumbarton Grammar School and the University of Glasgow, where he studied medicine and eventually qualified as a surgeon. Some biographers assert that he then proceeded to the University of Edinburgh, but left without earning a degree. Others state that his career in medicine came second to his literary ambitions at the age of 18, and it was not until 1750, that Smollett was granted his MD degree at the University of Aberdeen. In 1739 he went to London having written a play The Regicide, about the murder of King James I of Scotland. Unsuccessful at getting this on stage, he obtained a commission as a naval surgeon on HMS Chichester and travelled to Jamaica, where he settled down for several years. In 1742 he served as a surgeon during the disastrous campaign to capture Cartagena. These experiences were later included in the narrative of his novels. He married a wealthy Jamaican heiress, Anne "Nancy" Lascelles (1721 1791). She was a daughter of William Lascelles, but was unable to access her inheritance as it was invested in land and slaves. On their return to Britain, at the end of his Navy commission, Smollett established a practice in Downing Street but his wife did not join him until 1747; they had a daughter Elizabeth, who died aged 15 years about 1762. His two native languages were English and Scots. He translated famous works of the Enlightenment from other European languages. Smollett's first published work in 1746 was a poem about the Battle of Culloden entitled "The Tears of Scotland". However, it was The Adventures of Roderick Random, a semi-autobiographical story of a 'north Britain on the make' which made his name. His poetry was described as "delicate, sweet and murmurs as a stream". The Adventures of Roderick Random was modelled on Le Sage's Gil Blas and despite its scandalous content covering 'snobbery, prostitution, debt and hinting at homosexuality', it was published in 1748. After that, Smollett finally had his tragedy The Regicide published, although it was never performed. In 1750, he travelled to France, where he obtained material for his second novel, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, another success. Having lived for a brief time in Bath, he returned to London and published The Adventures.
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