By Tobias Smollett

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker:

This was Tobias Smollett’s last novel. Published in 1771, the year of the author’s death, it brought together all the qualities of Smollett’s work; - his renowned grouchy style, his knowledge of the travails of a doctor beset by hypochondriacs, (being a qualified Surgeon and MD himself), his lengthy and varied travels and a recent stay at the fashionable and increasingly ridiculous spa at Bath, all combine to make a very funny read.

It is an epistolatory novel, written as the letters of the five members of Squire Bramble’s household sent as they journey around Britain. Much of the humour comes from the differing descriptions given by the five characters of the same events, chief amongst which is the arrival and subsequent employment by the Brambles of the eponymous Mr Clinker, who never speaks for himself and does not even enter the novel until a third of the way through, but in spite of this has managed to become one of literature’s best loved characters. The duels, imprisonments, failed romances, jealousies and an inconveniently overturned carriage are all recounted with Smollett’s characteristically coarse and satirical verve.