The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
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About this ebook
The story of the fortunes and misfortunes of the egotistical dandy Peregrine Pickle, and it provides a comic and caustic portrayal of 18th century European society.
Tobias Smollett
Tobias Smollett (1721-71) was a Scottish author best known for his novels, The Adventures of Roderick Random and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, following which he became a major literary figure associated with the likes of David Garrick, Laurence Sterne, Charles Dickens and Samuel Johnson. In 1755 he published the standard translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote and in 1756, he became editor of The Critical Review. His first major non-fiction work was A Complete History of England.
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- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Peregrine Pickle is a young man born to a prosperous but unprepossessing merchant, Gamaliel Pickle, who has retired prematurely to the English countryside. Sent away for schooling, Peregrine demonstrates a remarkably defiant and independent character, as well as a lifelong penchant for elaborate and excessive practical jokes. He returns from school to discover that his mother, having in the meantime born two other children, has unaccountably refused to recognize Peregrine as her own. His spineless father refuses to intervene, so young Peregrine escapes to the refuge offered by his father's neighbor, Commodore Trunnion.Commodore Trunnion, a retired seafarer, and his confederates Lieutenant Hatchway and Bosun Pipes, are the source of most of the humor in the novel, with their relentless use of nautical jargon and metaphor. Living in a house they call the "garrison," equipped with hammocks rather than beds, Trunnion and his shipmates are delighted with the high-spirited Peregrine, and the Commodore not only sponsors the young man's college education, but a trip abroad to France and Holland where Peregrine not only encounters a host of eccentric characters, but also develops unfortunately extravagant tastes and appetites.Prior to his sojourn on the Continent, however, Peregrine has met the love of his life, the beautiful and virtuous Emilia. Their on and off again love affair will dominate the latter half of the novel in a typical sequence of prideful rebuffs and jealous misunderstandings. In this respect The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle is something of a transition between the picaresque novel and the "marriage plot" convention that dominated 19th-century fiction. Love and marriage are never to be disassociated from social class and fortune, and rare is the suitor who, on bended knee, declares his love for his beloved without mentioning his net worth in the same breath.Peregrine's life is a cautionary tale on the perils of pride and extravagance. Our young hero liberally dispenses charity, but takes offense at its being offered to him when he, in turn, is in need. He goes through a disastrous spell as a high-roller, attempting to ingratiate himself into English society, only to learn that an aristocratic title conveys neither good character nor sound judgment. At his high points he rejects his friends (and Emilia) as beneath him; at his low points he refuses their help and love in shame. The novel is flawed, perhaps fatally, by lengthy digressions into the life stories of characters who have little or nothing to do with Peregrine. The first and longest of these, subtitled "The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality," is the story of a young woman who marries first for love, then after the death of her husband, is talked by her father into an arranged marriage with a despicable English lord. The lady, in her attempt to free herself from her despised spouse, eventually becomes the mistress of a succession of noble patrons. This is an interesting digression into the sad plight of women caught in a legal system that favors the husband, but its telling is devoid of anything that will emotionally engage the reader. Likewise the later digressions into the life histories of disinherited youths. Satire is the chief purpose of the novel. Smollett pokes fun at the English aristocracy and clergy, but also shows the inferior characteristics of French autocracy. He also settles what is obviously a personal vendetta against publishers and untrustworthy sponsors.One of the more interesting episodes of the novel is when Peregrine, frustrated at Emelia's defense of her chastity, resolves to bed the first wench he sees. He literally buys a teenage girl from her indigent mother, then takes pleasure in educating her, a la Pygmalion's Galatea and "My Fair Lady," and passing her off at Court as a member of the gentry. Smollett also pokes fun at the medical profession: "His noble patron was seized with an apoplecitc fit, from which he was recovered by the physicians that they might dispatch him according to rule."Though this is not a bawdy novel, there is more sexual candor in this 1751 publication than you will find a century hence. There is a revealing episode in debtors' prison in which it is admitted that male and female inmates routinely cohabitate (prisoners being obliged to rent their apartments from the warden). The double standard is much in evidence, as Peregrine consorts frequently with courtesans and common whores but wouldn't dream of marrying a woman who wasn't a virgin.Altogether Peregrine Pickle is more an interesting novel than an enjoyable one. It gives us a memorable picture of mid-18th century life, but overlong digressions, a predictable plot, and limited humorous diversion after the opening chapters make the middle half of the novel more tedious than entertaining.