Travels Through France and Italy Tobias George Smollett Thomas 18661923 Seccombe 9781371964665 Books
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Travels Through France and Italy Tobias George Smollett Thomas 18661923 Seccombe 9781371964665 Books
The Eighteenth Century was the age of the polymath. It was the age of Benjamin Franklin, Wolfgang von Goethe, and Samuel Johnson. Men of this age were passionately interested in many things. They wanted to emulate Pliny, Leonardo da Vinci, and Pausanias. They wanted to see the things they had read about. That was not easy to do. Long-distance travel before the advent of railroads was grueling. Roads were often next-to-nonexistent; bad weather could obliterate them. Hiring a reliable coach that would not break down, getting fresh horses, and avoiding bandits were major issues in getting from place-to-place. In transit, finding sanitary, vermin-free accommodations, potable water, and edible food were daily challenges.In 1762, the British novelist Tobias Smollett took a trip to the Continent in hopes of improving his health. (How sick he actually was seems questionable; He complains about everything so much that it’s hard to tell just how seriously to take him.) The English are notoriously bad travelers and Tobias Smollett was, above all, an ENGLISHMAN! He complains about virtually everything: few roads are smooth, few beds are comfortable, little food is edible. Everything he experiences he compares to its British counterpart, and the British invariably come out superior. He’s certain that everyone is out to fleece him and to give him bad service, to boot. It’s all very amusing because he has no idea of how he impresses others. He relates a meeting with a young French composer who performed his “English Suite” for Smollett. Smollett tells us that he couldn’t understand why it was called “English”; it just sounded pretentious and pompous to him.
However, Smollett was highly educated and, once you get past his prejudices, had considerable critical faculties. His observations on the great monuments of antiquity are often insightful. Like Goethe, he had an interest in geology and the natural sciences. (In fact, Goethe’s TRAVELS IN ITALY would be good companion reading with this book.) The book consists of thirty-one letters to various acquaintances over a period of about two years, virtually all of whom are people he is trying to impress. This gives the book a certain liveliness that it might not have had if Smollett had only kept a journal. I probably would not have read this book had I not come across a reference to it in Lawrence Durrell’s book on Provence. I’m glad I did. Four stars.
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Travels Through France and Italy Tobias George Smollett Thomas 18661923 Seccombe 9781371964665 Books Reviews
I read the Oxford University Press edition of this work, complete with extensive footnotes, which I recommend as the best edition for modern use. The reader gets an insight into the way things were in Europe in those days.
Attempting to read this on my , I found it extremely distracting because the lines are cut off before the return, so there is a long line of words followed by a trailing word or three on a very short succeeding line, followed by a long line and then a short one again. It's almost impossible for me to enjoy a book that is so visually confusing. I wish I had known...
Reading it on my Mac is much better because the window simply shows the full wordage on each line, although the page seems rather narrow compared to other books. I imagine it would work just as well on an iPad.
Smollett himself is delightful, but this version renders it difficult to appreciate him.
I was disappointed in the stilted language of this book, which made it pretty much unreadable for me, as I particularly look for a sense of 'flow' when I pick up a new book. Ended up removing it from my device unread, which is a shame, as it was about two countries I especially like!
A very interesting book which deserves to be read by anybody, interested in the XVIII century literature. One of the best by Smollett. The only complaint is it being devoid of any sort of editor's comments, sometimes even translations of Latin phrases are missing.
IT IS ALWAYS GOOD TO VIEW A COUNTRY THROUGH SOME ONE ELSES EYES. INTERESTING......
Very detailed and descriptive of the travels and countryside. I did find it long winded with too much ancient descriptions in Latin.
The Eighteenth Century was the age of the polymath. It was the age of Benjamin Franklin, Wolfgang von Goethe, and Samuel Johnson. Men of this age were passionately interested in many things. They wanted to emulate Pliny, Leonardo da Vinci, and Pausanias. They wanted to see the things they had read about. That was not easy to do. Long-distance travel before the advent of railroads was grueling. Roads were often next-to-nonexistent; bad weather could obliterate them. Hiring a reliable coach that would not break down, getting fresh horses, and avoiding bandits were major issues in getting from place-to-place. In transit, finding sanitary, vermin-free accommodations, potable water, and edible food were daily challenges.
In 1762, the British novelist Tobias Smollett took a trip to the Continent in hopes of improving his health. (How sick he actually was seems questionable; He complains about everything so much that it’s hard to tell just how seriously to take him.) The English are notoriously bad travelers and Tobias Smollett was, above all, an ENGLISHMAN! He complains about virtually everything few roads are smooth, few beds are comfortable, little food is edible. Everything he experiences he compares to its British counterpart, and the British invariably come out superior. He’s certain that everyone is out to fleece him and to give him bad service, to boot. It’s all very amusing because he has no idea of how he impresses others. He relates a meeting with a young French composer who performed his “English Suite” for Smollett. Smollett tells us that he couldn’t understand why it was called “English”; it just sounded pretentious and pompous to him.
However, Smollett was highly educated and, once you get past his prejudices, had considerable critical faculties. His observations on the great monuments of antiquity are often insightful. Like Goethe, he had an interest in geology and the natural sciences. (In fact, Goethe’s TRAVELS IN ITALY would be good companion reading with this book.) The book consists of thirty-one letters to various acquaintances over a period of about two years, virtually all of whom are people he is trying to impress. This gives the book a certain liveliness that it might not have had if Smollett had only kept a journal. I probably would not have read this book had I not come across a reference to it in Lawrence Durrell’s book on Provence. I’m glad I did. Four stars.
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