Tobias Smollett, The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves

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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…

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 28 March 2024.]

363 The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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