Illustrated editions of Tobias Smollett's novels: a checklist and commentary

Abstract

As the title of this thesis indicates, the checklist of editions of Smollett's novels, although appearing after the commentary, is in Pact a prelude to it. Assembled from copies of Smollett's novels that I have examined in the major libraries in Britain and America, it encompasses as many editions as have been possible to locate. Its chronological scope runs from the publication of Roderick Random in 1748 to the last comprehensive illustrated selection'of the novels, by Cruikshank for Roscoe's Novelist's Library series in 1832. Title- page transcriptions are given for all editions, and for illustrated editions a detailed description of the plates is also noted, some two hundred of which are reproduced and inserted at relevant junctures in the commentary.

The commentary deals exclusively with illustrated editions, and in the introduction the general principles for the chapters that follow are discussed. Some account is given for the reasons why novels, and Smollett's novels in particular, were illustrated in the period, and it is emphasised that the chapters on each novel concentrate on qualitative assessment of those illustrations that I consider to be most significant. After some discussion of the relationship between novels and illustrations, and between Smollett and the visual arts generally, the elements in Smollett's fiction which make him a 'graphic' novelist are explored: his characterisation, with its stress on external physical description, and his predilection for the set-piece situation. The general approach is to set these two fictional techniques against the versions of scenes and characters as they are found in the illustrations.

Chapter 1 opens with a general survey of illustrations to Roderick Random, and in discussing the Hogarthian Novelist set of plates (1792) an attempt is made to decide how far Smollett could be called Hogarthian in his methods, and how far he is a caricaturist. In this novel the author is concerned with making his characters and situations 'striking, humorous, and moral', and it is concluded that this was an order of emphasis attractive to Cruikshank and Rowlandson, but not typical of Hogarth. It is argued that the episodic nature of the plot mirrors this emphasis on the locally striking.

In chapter 2, after a survey of the illustrated editions of Peregrine Pickle, Cruikshank's set of plates, the Points of Humour (1824), is used to show his appreciation of two elements he found both typical of Smollett and suitable for graphic illustrations the 'humour of situation' and an abundance of eccentric characters. It is argued that Peregrine's 'satirical disposition' leads him to create situations, and where Roderick Random was notable for portrait caricatures, Peregrine Pickle and the illustrations to it are most striking on the level of the violent scene, in spite of the overt Bildungsroman.

The survey of illustrated editions of Ferdinand Count Fathom is rather brief since this novel was not generally attractive to illustrators. The reasons for this are taken to be Smollett's concern with the 'psychology of fear' and the lack of comic characters and situations in the novel. The limited timespan of illustrations, between 1780 and 1810, and the popularity of the scene where Monimia appears as a ghost to Renaldo in the church, lead the discussion into how far Ferdinand Count Fathom is a precursor of the Gothic novel, as this was certainly boil it was interpreted in illustrations to the novel.

The slight literary value of Sir Launcelot Greaves in contrast to its significance as the first full length original piece of serialised fiction (moreover the first illustrated serial), prompts discussion of the ways in which Smollett's novels were produced, reprinted, embellished and marketed during the period, taking Sir Launcelot Greaves as a typical example of the changes of fashion in the book trade in the period. This includes consideration of publishing in numbers, the copyright situation, the use of plates as a selling feature, and a more specific discussion of the Sir Launcelot Greaves plates particularly the theme of the 'armed hero'. The increase in the size of editions in the period, due to the growth of literacy, is explored in relation to two stereotype editions of the novel which appeared in the early nineteenth century.

In the last chapter the survey of illustrated editions of Humphry Clinker shows how it was comparatively unpopular with the illustrators in spite of its position as Smollett's most accomplished novel. This is accounted for by the more complex structure of an epistolary novel, The graphic elements in the early novels, the descriptions of characters and situations, is in Humphry Clinker confined to the letters of only one of the narrators, and Rowlandson's are the only outstanding illustrations to the novel. In keeping with the general structure of the novel, descriptions of characters and of situations are more highly stylised, and Smollett shows more self- consciousness of the ways in which passion 'perverts the organs of sense', thus undercutting his earlier simple graphic mode.

There are also two appendices, one a detailed description of Fuseli's frontispieces to Peregrine Pickle, and the other an account of the physician's dream in Peregrine Pickle which I take to refer to Akenside's Odes on Several Subjects (1745).