The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves
The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves
TOBIAS SMOLLETT
Introduction and Notes by ROBERT FOLKENFLIK
The Text Edited by BARBARA LANING FITZPATRICK
Series: The Works of Tobias Smollett
Copyright Date: 2002
Published by: University of Georgia Press
Pages: 368
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n97v
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The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves
Book Description:

This new edition brings to life Tobias Smollett's fourth novel,The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves. No annotated edition of the work existed before the second half of the twentieth century, and this comprehensive edition by Robert Folkenflik and Barbara Laning Fitzpatrick features more accurate text as well as scrupulous textual and critical information. Also included in the detailed introduction is a unique examination of Sir Launcelot Greaves, the first illustrated serial novel, in relation to the engravings by Anthony Walker.Sir Launcelot Greaveswas a groundbreaking novel for Smollett. Published inBritish Magazinebeginning in January 1760, it was the first major work by an English novelist to have been written specifically for serial publication. The novel, Smollett's shortest, differs stylistically from his previous works. The most attractive of his heroes, Sir Launcelot is virtuous and strange, and he is surrounded by a Smollettian menagerie whose various jargons are part of this novel's linguistic virtuosity and satire. Sir Launcelot's character is an English naturalization of Quixote. Although Sir Launcelot, unlike Quixote, is not the object of the author's satire, an idealistic madness is central to both characters. In Smollett's work the theme of madness is integral to the relationship between self and society as the work ponders both the constitution of madness and the alternatives to revenge.

Sir Launcelot Greaves, though not Smollett's most heralded work, has not received the recognition it deserves. Folkenflik and Fitzpatrick present a definitive edition that will be appreciated by scholars and lovers of eighteenth-century literature.

eISBN: 978-0-8203-4647-2
Subjects: Language & Literature
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-vi)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. vii-viii)
  3. List of Illustrations
    List of Illustrations (pp. ix-x)
  4. PREFACE
    PREFACE (pp. xi-xii)
  5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (pp. xiii-xiv)
    Robert Folkenflik
  6. List of Abbreviations
    List of Abbreviations (pp. xv-xvi)
  7. INTRODUCTION
    INTRODUCTION (pp. xvii-liv)

    Tobias Smollett’s fourth novel,The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, first appeared serially in twenty-five consecutive issues of theBritish Magazine; or, Monthly Repository for Gentlemen and Ladies, a new venture in which Smollett had a controlling interest. The magazine’s inaugural issue, published 1 January 1760, printed Smollett’s first chapter; the novel concluded in volume 2, number 12, published 1 January 1762. It was the longest work of original fiction yet to appear in an English periodical, and it was the first serially published novel ever to be illustrated. No doubt because Smollett himself aggressively promoted the magazine,...

  8. The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves
    The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (pp. 1-198)

    It was on the great northern road¹ from York to London, about the beginning of the month October, and the hour of eight in the evening, that four travellers were by a violent shower of rain driven for shelter into a little public house on the side of the highway, distinguished by a sign which was said to exhibit the figure of a black lion.² The kitchen, in which they assembled, was the only room for entertainment in the house, paved with red bricks, remarkably clean, furnished with three or four Windsor chairs,³ adorned with shining plates of pewter and...

  9. NOTES TO THE TEXT
    NOTES TO THE TEXT (pp. 199-254)
  10. TEXTUAL COMMENTARY
    TEXTUAL COMMENTARY (pp. 255-270)
  11. LIST OF EMENDATIONS
    LIST OF EMENDATIONS (pp. 271-276)
  12. TEXTUAL NOTES
    TEXTUAL NOTES (pp. 277-278)
  13. WORD-DIVISION
    WORD-DIVISION (pp. 279-284)
  14. HISTORICAL COLLATION
    HISTORICAL COLLATION (pp. 285-300)
  15. PUBLICATION DATES THE BRITISH MAGAZINE: OR, MONTHLY REPOSITORY FOR GENTLEMEN AND LADIES (1760–61)
    PUBLICATION DATES THE BRITISH MAGAZINE: OR, MONTHLY REPOSITORY FOR GENTLEMEN AND LADIES (1760–61) (pp. 301-302)
  16. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTIONS
    BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTIONS (pp. 303-306)
  17. INDEX
    INDEX (pp. 307-314)
  18. Back Matter
    Back Matter (pp. 315-315)
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