The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

Last updated

The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
Peregrine Pickle 1st edition.png
First edition title page
Author Tobias Smollett
CountryGreat Britain
LanguageEnglish
Genre Picaresque novel
Publication date
1751
1758 (revised reissue)
Media typePrint
Pages372

The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle is a picaresque novel by the Scottish author Tobias Smollett, first published in 1751 and revised and published again in 1758. It tells the story of an egotistical man who experiences luck and misfortunes in the height of 18th-century European society.

Contents

Plot summary

Commodore Trunnion and Jack Hatchway by Francis William Edmonds Francis William Edmonds - Commodore Trunnion and Jack Hatchway.jpg
Commodore Trunnion and Jack Hatchway by Francis William Edmonds

The novel begins with the character of Peregrine as a young country gentleman rejected by his cruel mother, ignored by his indifferent father, and hated by his degenerate brother. After their alienation, he turns to Commodore Hawser Trunnion, who raises him.

Peregrine's detailed life experience provides a scope for Smollett's satire on human cruelty, stupidity, and greed: from his upbringing, education at Oxford, journey to France, jailing at the Fleet, and unexpected succession to his father's fortune and his final repentance and marriage to his beloved Emilia. The novel is written as a series of adventures, with every chapter depicting a new experience. The novel also contains a lengthy independent story called "The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality", written by Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane.

Peregrine Pickle features several amusing characters, most notably Commodore Hawser Trunnion, an old seaman and misogynist who lives in a house with his former shipmates. Trunnion's lifestyle may have inspired Charles Dickens to create the character of Wemmick in Great Expectations . [1] Another interesting character is Peregrine's friend Cadwallader Crabtree, an old misanthrope who amuses himself by playing ingenious jokes on naive people.

Smollett also caricatured many of his enemies in the novel, most notably Henry Fielding and the actor David Garrick. Fitzroy Henry Lee was supposedly the model for Hawser Trunnion. [2]

Criticism

George Orwell, writing in the Tribune in 1944, said regarding the novels Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle:

"Peregrine devotes himself for months at a time to the elaborate and horribly cruel practical jokes in which the eighteenth century delighted. When, for instance, an unfortunate English painter is thrown into the Bastille for some trifling offence and is about to be released, Peregrine and his friends, playing on his ignorance of the language, let him think he has been sentenced to be broken on a wheel. A little later they tell him that his punishment has been commuted to castration. Why are these petty rogueries worth reading about? In the first place because they are funny. Secondly, by simply ruling out 'good' motives and showing no respect whatsoever for human dignity, Smollett attains a truthfulness that more serious novelists have missed." [3]

Legacy

George P. Upton published the Letters of Peregrine Pickle in the Chicago Tribune from 1866 to 1869 as weekly letters and then in book forms. [4]

Related Research Articles

Political fiction employs narrative to comment on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction, such as political novels, often "directly criticize an existing society or present an alternative, even fantastic, reality". The political novel overlaps with the social novel, proletarian novel, and social science fiction.

Peregrine(s), Peregrin, or Latin Peregrinus may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobias Smollett</span> Scottish novelist, surgeon, critic and playwright, 1721–1771

Tobias George Smollett was a Scottish novelist, surgeon, critic and playwright. He was best known for 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 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.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1750.

<i>The Expedition of Humphry Clinker</i> 1771 picaresque novel by Tobias Smollett

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker was the last of the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett, published in London on 17 June 1771, and is considered by many to be his best and funniest work. It is an epistolary novel, presented in the form of letters written by six characters: Matthew Bramble, a Welsh Squire; his sister Tabitha; their niece Lydia and nephew Jeremy Melford; Tabitha's maid Winifred Jenkins; and Lydia's suitor Wilson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fleet Prison</span> 12th-century prison in London

Fleet Prison was a notorious London prison by the side of the River Fleet. The prison was built in 1197, was rebuilt several times, and was in use until 1844. It was demolished in 1846.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Davy Jones's locker</span> Sailor legend

Davy Jones's locker is a metaphor for the oceanic abyss, the final resting place of drowned sailors and travellers. It is a euphemism for drowning or shipwrecks in which the sailors' and ships' remains are consigned to the depths of the ocean.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Illustrated fiction</span>

Illustrated fiction is a hybrid narrative medium in which images and text work together to tell a story. It can take various forms, including fiction written for adults or children, magazine fiction, comic strips, and picture books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FitzRoy Henry Lee</span> Canadian politician

Vice-Admiral Fitzroy Henry Lee was a British Royal Navy officer who served as Commodore Governor of the Colony of Newfoundland.

Events from the year 1751 in Great Britain.

<i>The Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom</i>

The Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom is a novel by Tobias Smollett first published in 1753. It was Smollett's third novel and met with less success than his two previous more picaresque tales. The central character is a villainous dandy who cheats, swindles and philanders his way across Europe and England with little concern for the law or the welfare of others. He is the son of an equally disreputable mother, and Smollett himself comments that "Fathom justifies the proverb, 'What's bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh". Sir Walter Scott commented that the novel paints a "complete picture of human depravity"

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Austen (illustrator)</span> British book illustrator

John Archibald Austen was a British book illustrator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Shebbeare</span> British political satirist (1709–1788)

John Shebbeare (1709–1788) was a British Tory political satirist.

William Holles Vane, 2nd Viscount Vane, was a British Whig politician. He is best remembered for his devotion to his openly unfaithful wife Frances, who despised him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane</span> British memoirist

Frances Anne Vane, Viscountess Vane, was a British memoirist known for her highly public adulterous relationships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English Music (novel)</span>

English Music is the sixth novel by Peter Ackroyd. Published in 1992, it is both a bildungsroman and, in the words of critic John Barrell, "partly a series of rhapsodies and meditations on the nature of English culture, written in the styles of various great authors." As with all Ackroyd's previous novels, it focuses on London, although on this occasion partly as a backdrop for English culture in general.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Novel in Scotland</span> Aspect of literature in Scotland

The novel in Scotland includes all long prose fiction published in Scotland and by Scottish authors since the development of the literary format in the eighteenth century. The novel was soon a major element of Scottish literary and critical life. Tobias Smollett's picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle mean that he is often seen as Scotland's first novelist. Other Scots who contributed to the development of the novel in the eighteenth century include Henry Mackenzie and John Moore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish literature in the eighteenth century</span>

Scottish literature in the eighteenth century is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers in the eighteenth century. It includes literature written in English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots, in forms including poetry, drama and novels. After the Union in 1707 Scottish literature developed a distinct national identity. Allan Ramsay led a "vernacular revival", the trend for pastoral poetry and developed the Habbie stanza. He was part of a community of poets working in Scots and English who included William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, Robert Crawford, Alexander Ross, William Hamilton of Bangour, Alison Rutherford Cockburn, and James Thomson. The eighteenth century was also a period of innovation in Gaelic vernacular poetry. Major figures included Rob Donn Mackay, Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir, Uillean Ross and Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, who helped inspire a new form of nature poetry. James Macpherson was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation, claiming to have found poetry written by Ossian. Robert Burns is widely regarded as the national poet.

Events from the year 1751 in Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Putnam Upton</span> American journalist and author (1834–1919)

George Putnam Upton was an American journalist and author.

References

  1. Beaman, Evelyn Armstrong, "Dickens' relationship to Tobias Smollett". Masters Theses 1896 – February 2014. Paper 1304. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/1304
  2. J. K. Laughton, ‘Lee, Fitzroy Henry (1699–1750)’, rev. Philip Carter, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
  3. Tribune, 22 September 1944, reprinted in Orwell: Collected Works, I Have Tried to Tell the Truth, p. 409
  4. Upton, George P. (George Putnam) (16 July 1869). "Letters of Peregrine Pickle [pseud]". Chicago: The Western News Company via Internet Archive.