Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom

Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.05: English Writing and Culture from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, 1689-1789.
Vol. editors: Paul Baines (University of Liverpool), Robert Clark (The Literary Encyclopedia), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Pat Rogers (University of South Florida), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1753

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Tobias Smollett's third novel, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom followed The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751), which between them had established the writer's reputation as a leading exponent of the ‘new species of writing' – the novel.

Despite the similarity suggested by the repetition of ‘Adventures' in the title, Fathom marks yet a new departure in Smollett's fiction, taking as its central character a low-born, wholly unsympathetic and even demonic figure.

Ferdinand de Fadom, to give him his earliest name, is no count but the illegitimate son of a camp-follower of Marlborough's army in the War of the Spanish Succession. When the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) brings that war to a close, Ferdinand's mother moves east with the army of Prince Eugene of Savoy during the wars...

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1229 words

Citation: Ross, Ian Campbell. "The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 September 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10083, accessed 09 June 2026.]

Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom

Dates

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