Humphry Clinker

The eighteenth-century picaresque masterpiece— now in a new edition A triumph of English satire, Humphry Clinkerwas published just three months prior to its author’s death in 1771. At its heart is Matthew Bramble, a gout-ridden misanthrope who travels Britain with his nephew, niece, spinster sister, and manservant, the trusty Humphry Clinker. In a narrative peopled with pimps, drunkards, and con men, Bramble’s pessimistic views on the world’s degeneracy— and his eagerness to express them—betray the author’s belief that his countrymen were suffering from an acute lack of sense and sobriety. Boisterous and keenly observant, Humphry Clinkeris a delicious send-up of eighteenth-century society.

Tobias Smollett (1721-û1771) was a Scottish physician and writer. His novel Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753) is a precursor of Gothic fiction.

Jeremy Lewis is the author of two highly praised volumes of autobiography, Playing for Time and Kindred Spirits, and of biographies of Cyril Connolly and Tobias Smollett.

Shaun Regan is a lecturer in English at Queen-'s University in Belfast, Ireland.