The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

In his last and finest novel, Tobias Smollett uses multiple letter writers to create a very funny and nearly kaleidoscopic vision of life in mid eighteenth-century Britain. As his protagonists travel about the countryside on their quest to restore patriarch Matthew Bramble's health, they unwittingly succeed in uniting Britain across boundaries of nation, class, religion, and gender. The text of this Norton Critical Edition is based on the first edition of 1771. It is accompanied by explanatory footnotes, illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson for the 1793 edition, and a map by Charles Scavey. A new 'Backgrounds and Contexts' section includes selections from Smollett's early poetry as well as important later nonfiction writings on history, the novel, and the Anglo-Scottish Union. 'Criticism' presents the most important reviews and scholarly assessments of the novel, including early reviews from 1771 and contemporary scholarship focusing on topics such as nationalism, colonialism, gender studies, and the histories of religion and medicine.