Rating: 
Summary: A Fine Trip to 18th Century Life
Review: A high recommendation for this book lead me to read it. What an enjoyable trip into the past.The author writes letters as more than half-a-dozen characters, and they are a very interesting batch of folks. Mr. Bramble and his family, Dr. Lewis, Tabitha, and of course, Winifred Jenkins, who can murder the language beyond imigination travel through England and Scotland and tell of their experiences on the trip. Oh yea, let's not forget Chowder. They are a lively batch, with various health and social situations that make for interesting correspondance. The title character, Humphey Clinker joins the party mid-trip, and helps make matters very interesting, starting in as a man-servant. It's best not to discuss the contents of the letters. The discovery while reading is very enjoyable! Don't expect a very fast read, as the old style English (and Mrs. Jenkins verbal assaults) makes for a somewhat slow pace, and make sure to have a dictionary handy. Some words, even though familiar to the reader, are best looked up for the 2nd or 3rd definition of meaning (such as "ejaculation"). It's very easy to see why early Americans enjoyed this book. A rememberance of life in Old England, it pokes fun at many personalities that they are sure to have encountered. Last suggestion, do as David McCullough did, and read it twice. The second time is much more entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: A SLICE OF 18TH CENTURY LIFE
Review: Full of social satire. A comedy with pathos. Insightful verbal blunders. This picaresque book of travel letters is a hoot with a most satisfying conclusion as the characters get their come-uppance and rewards. I love the distinct and lively images that shine through the puns, word games, and allusions.
Rating:
Summary: Time Capsule for the Eighteenth Century
Review: his great novel, written in 1771, is one of those books that is written so much in the present moment of its own time that it becomes a valuable and fascinating time capsule for future generations. There is no more entertaining way to visit another time and place. There is no need for you to come to the novel already knowing anything about the eighteenth century, because Smollett has his sharp observant mind and all five of his senses open to his world for you--here you will read all of the sights, sounds, tastes, touches, and most memorably of all (for better and for worse) the *smells* of what surrounds him. The grumpy-old-man-with-a-heart-of-gold Matthew Bramble takes his family and assorted hangers-on for a tour of Great Britain, visiting Bath, London, and many other places along the way. For lovers of Scotland, you are in for a treat here, as Smollett writes this novel as an important "P.R." job for his homeland to his skeptical English readers. The descriptions of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the Hebrides make you want to book your airline tickets right away; Smollett has an eye for those aspects of the Scottish landscape and Scottish people that haven't really changed in the last 250 years. This is an epistolary novel, written entirely in the form of letters with no central narrator.
The strength of this format is that it allows the reader to see the same places and events from the (sometimes radically different) perspective of more than one person. As a result, you get comedy, tragedy, farce, romance, satire, and a good adventure story all in one enjoyable package. One word of caution, though: because of the epistolary format and the travelogue format, you shouldn't really approach "Humphry Clinker" with the expectations of finding a strong unified plot. This is something that we get mostly from the novels of the late eighteenth century and certainly the Victorian novels of the nineteenth century. There IS a plot--a good one--but just don't expect the plot to be the star of the show. If you read it as a series of memorable and sharply drawn sketches and characters and places, and for how well it captures what is unique to the time and place in which it is written, I think you will enjoy it a great deal.
Rating: 
Summary: Humphry Clinker
Review: Humphry Clinker is a fairly hard book to read. If English is your second language it may be quite a challenge, but having the Oxford dictonary on hand helps, as about four words per page are dated and obscure. I had to read Humphry Clinker for an English course and understand that the Professor picked it because it is a "snap shot" of English life in the 1760's. The politics, health trends, religious choices, entertainment and family affairs of the time are described by the cast of people you come across in the story. The book is a series of letters written by the charaters while they travel through the country. Once you get the hang of each character's personality and level of education (which is reflected by their letter writing) you can follow the story fairly well. I just found the book to be a little boring and convoluted, but in it's time it would have been interesting and even funny in places. Remembering that there was no TV or radio at the time helps to see how the book would have captured the imagination. Today it is just a "historical" interest piece. I suggest Cliff Note's with this book.....
Rating:
Summary: The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
Review: I read the Penguin Classics edition. Editor's introduction, notes and glossary make this an easy and enjoyable read. It's hilarious and at the same time very real to the reader. Criticism at its best. Many of Smollett's observations of humanity's condition would apply today as it did in eighteenth century Britain. Humanity really doesn't change much. It's easy to see why John Adams considered it a must for his library.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoy the trip, but don't drink the water
Review: One of the great things about these Amazon customer reviews is that they can alert you to wonderful books that you would otherwise not consider reading. "Humphry Clinker" is a prime example. An eighteenth-century epistolary novel may not sound too enticing and I would guess that few people other than students whose courses oblige them to, would read it these days. Well, I am here to tell you that you should! It is social satire at its brilliant best. Smollett satirized English society mercilessly, but was even harder on his fellow Scots. The result is a novel that is a continual and wicked joy to read. The characters are finely drawn and their correspondence is written in very individual voices. We follow their adventures as they journey through England and Scotland in the years before revolution in America and France changed the world forever. It is a world obsessed with social class, money and advantageous marriage (so why did I say it changed for ever!). There is plenty of sharp humor and a deal of profound insight into human nature. Smollett's last and best novel, it is a wise and mature journal of Mankind's folly. Incidentally, the graphic description of the spa town of Bath will make you never want to drink spa water again. Reading that particular chapter requires a strong stomach.
Rating:
Summary: Smollett's Masterpiece
Review: Several years ago I found an old, unedited Signet paperback of "Humphrey Clinker" and read it without any recommendation other than it's cover, which displayed caricatures of Captain Lismahago and Tabitha Bramble--two of Smollett's comic personae. I found it to be fascinating, high-spirited, and very funny. I recently reread the Oxford paperback edition and was not disappointed. Smollett's book was written during a time of great intellectual enlightenment and social upheaval. The letters of the central character, Squire Matthew Bramble contain wonderful observations and critical commentary of this period in British history. The epistolary format,with several different writers, allows for multiple viewpoints and works much like an omniscient narrator. The letters they write reveal much about the characters--all of whom fail to be completely objective in their outlook. The malapropisms of Tabitha and her lady's maid Winifred are wonderfully allusive and often hilarious. Although the book loses some momentum during some of the Scottish chapters, it is a pleasure to read. "Humphry Clinker" is rich in insight and humor. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Smollett's Masterpiece
Review: Several years ago I found an old, unedited Signet paperback of "Humphrey Clinker" and read it without any recommendation other than it's cover, which displayed caricatures of Captain Lismahago and Tabitha Bramble--two of Smollett's comic personae. I found it to be fascinating, high-spirited, and very funny. I recently reread the Oxford paperback edition and was not disappointed. Smollett's book was written during a time of great intellectual enlightenment and social upheaval. The letters of the central character, Squire Matthew Bramble contain wonderful observations and critical commentary of this period in British history. The epistolary format,with several different writers, allows for multiple viewpoints and works much like an omniscient narrator. The letters they write reveal much about the characters--all of whom fail to be completely objective in their outlook. The malapropisms of Tabitha and her lady's maid Winifred are wonderfully allusive and often hilarious. Although the book loses some momentum during some of the Scottish chapters, it is a pleasure to read. "Humphry Clinker" is rich in insight and humor. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: To anyone who still writes letters
Review: The art of letter writing is in decline. But to anyone who still writes letters, this book is a must. It will delight, inspire, instruct, and thoroughly amuse you. Syndicated columnist, Colin Campbell - The Newspaper Priest. www.newspriest.com
Rating:
Summary: Worth Taking the Time to Read Slowly
Review: Tobias Smollett's 1771 novel, "The Expedition of Humphry Clinker," took me almost two months to read. The novel, a "sort of novel," as Dr. Johnson once said, I think of his own "Rasselas," doesn't really have a plot, which contributes to the pacing, which is slow, but highly enjoyable. From the beginning of April through the end of November, basically from the season of planting through the season of reaping, Squire Bramble, an irascible hypochondriac of a Welshman, and his family engage upon a series of travels which lead them from Wales through England to Scotland and back again. An epistolary novel, "Humphry Clinker" is no stranger in format to the eighteenth century - however, odd to me was the fact that none of the writers - Squire Bramble, his sister Tabitha, their nephew and niece Jery and Lydia Melford, and Tabitha's waiting woman Winifred - ever receives a response. The letters of the Bramble expedition encompass a wide range of topics, along a range of experience and sentiment, of interaction, which itself is a veritable buffet of later eighteenth century customs, coffeehouse culture, civil engineering, agriculture, speech, fashion, science, moral philosophy, art, and manners spanning Wales, England, and Scotland, both in countryside and cityscape. As such, the novel has a number of preoccupations - the social and political relations between different countries which comprised the then-British Empire - English-Scottish relations in particular are a focus, some 71 years after the Act of Union, and were pretty fascinating to me. There are a number of references to America, and to the Native Americans, which the Scot Cadwallader Colden had written of only a few years before in his "History of the Five Indian Nations." England's own internal politics are reflected on throughout the novel. The debate over luxury, a hot eighteenth century topic, is constantly in the background of the Bramble family's letters. The letters of Squire Bramble to his doctor-friend Lewis and Jery Melford's to his college friend Wat Phillips comprise the bulk of the novel, and as with so many epistolary novels, their letters often tell us as much about their circumstances and exploits as they do about the writers themselves. These are both heroes of sensibility, a young and an old whose ages frequently provide interesting takes on the same events. Such can be said about the other writers as well - From the Squire to Jery to Tabitha to Lydia to Winifred - we are given a wealth of perspective and language - valuable lenses all to form our own opinions of the events, such as they are, that transpire in their travels. Their various perspectives on two of the novel's minor characters, the eponymous Humphry Clinker and the combative disputant Scot Obadiah Lismahago (the most cosmopolitan figure among the recurring characters), confer substance, interest, and warmth upon characters who do not themselves write letters. As valuable and entertaining a travelogue as Voltaire's "Letters Upon England," or Smollett-rival Laurence Sterne's "Sentimental Journey through France and Italy," and as simultaneously celebratory and critical of sentimentality as Henry Mackenzie's "The Man of Feeling," "The Expedition of Humphry Clinker" was my first experience with Tobias Smollett, and certainly shall not be my last. Empahses on religion and reason, on intellect and emotion, on the state of marriage, on the Horatian preoccupation with how to live the good life, interest in literature and culture, and an almost universal eye for satire and critique make "Humphry Clinker" well worth taking the time to read slowly. It is a novel which I found both entertaining and edifying. Surely, a "great original."
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