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 1766.
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.
The French Riviera is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from Toulon, Le Lavandou or Saint-Tropez in the west to Menton at the France–Italy border in the east. The coast is entirely within the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. The Principality of Monaco is a semi-enclave within the region, surrounded on three sides by France and fronting the Mediterranean. The French Riviera contains the seaside resorts of Cap-d'Ail, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Villefranche-sur-Mer, Antibes, Juan-les-Pins, Cannes, Saint-Raphaël, Fréjus, Sainte-Maxime and Saint-Tropez.
The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank when they had come of age.
Faxian, also referred to as Fa-Hien, Fa-hsien and Sehi, was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from China to India to acquire Buddhist texts. Starting his arduous journey about age 60, he visited sacred Buddhist sites in Central, South and Southeast Asia between 399 and 412 CE, of which 10 years were spent in India.
Thomas Coryat was an English traveller and writer of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean age. He is principally remembered for two volumes of writings he left regarding his travels, often on foot, through Europe and parts of Asia. He is often credited with introducing the table fork to England, with "Furcifer" becoming one of his nicknames. His description of how the Italians shielded themselves from the sun resulted in the word "umbrella" being introduced into English.
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a novel by Laurence Sterne, written and first published in 1768, as Sterne was facing death. In 1765, Sterne travelled through France and Italy as far south as Naples, and after returning determined to describe his travels from a sentimental point of view. The novel can be seen as an epilogue to the possibly unfinished work The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and also as an answer to Tobias Smollett's decidedly unsentimental Travels Through France and Italy. Sterne had met Smollett during his travels in Europe, and strongly objected to his spleen, acerbity and quarrelsomeness. He modelled the character of Smelfungus on him.
In 18th- and 19th-century Italy, the cicisbeo or cavalier servente was the man who was the professed gallant or lover of a woman married to someone else. With the knowledge and consent of the husband, the cicisbeo attended his mistress at public entertainments, to church and other occasions, and had privileged access to this woman. The arrangement is comparable to the Spanish cortejo or estrecho and, to a lesser degree, to the French petit-maître. The exact etymology of the word is unknown; some evidence suggests it originally meant "in a whisper". Other accounts suggest it is an inversion of bel cece, which means "beautiful chick (pea)". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded usage of the term in English was found in a letter by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu dated 1718. The term appears in Italian in Giovanni Maria Muti's Quaresimale Del Padre Maestro Fra Giovanni Maria Muti De Predicatori of 1708.
Smelfungus is the name given by Laurence Sterne to a character in his novel A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, written in 1768. The character was created as a satire of Tobias Smollett, himself author of a volume of Travels Through France and Italy, which was published in 1766. Sterne had met Smollett during his own travels in Europe, and strongly objected to Smollett's "spleen, acerbity and quarrelsomeness". He modelled the character of Smelfungus on him for the "snarling abuse he heaps on the institutions and customs of the countries he visited".
Literature of the 18th century refers to world literature produced during the years 1700–1799.
The Via Julia Augusta is the name given to the Roman road formed by the merging of the Via Aemilia Scauri with the Via Postumia. The road runs from Placentia to Arelate, initially westward along the edge of the plain of the River Po to Derthona (Tortona), then southward to the Ligurian coast. There it formed a continuous route westward along the precipitous descent of the Ligurian mountains into the sea. This takes it to Vada Sabatia, Albingaunum (Albenga) and Album Intimilium (Ventimiglia), continuing to La Turbie, where its original terminus was marked by a triumphal arch. Later it was extended, taking a route away from the coast via the valley of the River Laghet, north of Nice and westward to Arles where it joined the Via Domitia.
Fulvio Orsini was an Italian humanist, historian, and archaeologist. He was a descendant of the Orsini family, one of the oldest, most illustrious, and for centuries most powerful of the Roman princely families, whose origins, when stripped of legend, can be traced back to a certain Ursus de Paro, recorded at Rome in 998.
Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842, and 1843 is a travel narrative by the British Romantic author Mary Shelley. Issued in 1844, it is her last published work. Published in two volumes, the text describes two European trips that Mary Shelley took with her son, Percy Florence Shelley, and several of his university friends. Mary Shelley had lived in Italy with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, between 1818 and 1823. For her, Italy was associated with both joy and grief: she had written much while there but she had also lost her husband and two of her children. Thus, although she was anxious to return, the trip was tinged with sorrow. Shelley describes her journey as a pilgrimage, which will help cure her depression.
Les aventures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse is a didactic novel by François Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, who in 1689 became tutor to the seven-year-old Duc de Bourgogne. It was published anonymously in 1699 and reissued in 1717 by his family. The slender plot fills out a gap in Homer's Odyssey, recounting the educational travels of Telemachus, son of Ulysses, accompanied by his tutor, Mentor, who is revealed early on in the story to be Minerva, goddess of wisdom, in disguise.
Samuel Sharp FRS (1709–1778) was an English surgeon and author. As a surgeon at Guy's Hospital, from 1733 to 1757, was internationally famous. His A Treatise on the Operations of Surgery, was the first British study focuses exclusively on operative technique.
John Hall-Stevenson, in his youth known as John Hall, was an English country gentleman and writer.
Edward Browne, FRS was a British physician, and president of the College of Physicians.
Thomas Roscoe was an English author and translator.
