Tobias Smollett's fourth novel, Sir Launcelot Greaves, is a contemporary take on what was, for the eighteenth century, the single most influential work of European fiction, Don Quixote (1605-15). The knight of Smollett's title is a Yorkshire country gentleman - importantly a baronet, rather than a nobleman - son of the landowner, Sir Everhard. Sir Launcelot Greaves opens with a strikingly successful opening chapter, in which a number of the novel's characters are driven together by a storm at an inn on the Great North Road. They include the merchant-navy man, Capt Crowe – whose nautical language recalls both Roderick Random's Tom Bowling and Peregrine Pickle's Commodore Trunnion his nephew, the lawyer Tom Clarke, Fillet the country doctor, and the perverse, misanthropic Ferret, along with the barmaid Dolly. The party is interrupted by the arrival...
1177 words
Citation: Ross, Ian Campbell. "The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 September 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=363, accessed 09 June 2026.]
