The Expedition of Humphry Clinker Author:Tobias Smollett With the sharp sensitivity of "a man without skin" Tobias Smollett humorously attacked the frivolity and foibles of eighteenth-century England. Humphry Clinker is his mirthful tale of a tour by coach and four through cities and countryside. Five people embark on the journey: the crusty eccentric, Squire Bramble; his husband-hunting sister, Tabit... more »ha; her maid, Winifred; and Bramble's youthful niece and nephew, Lydia and Jery. En route they are joined by Humphry Clinker, an honest Wiltshire lad of tattered cloth and empty purse. As misadventure follows misadventure, each character reveals his true self by giving his own conflicting view of the incidents, places, and people encountered along the way. The result in an entertaining and realistic picture of that wonderful age when gentlemen dueled, ladies swooned, and servants rose from rags to riches.« less
Humphry Clinker is one of the jewels of 18th-century English fiction, a novel which not only tells much about the development of the genre, but which also continues to amuse today.