Cover of Travels Through France And Italy by Tobias Smollett Audiobook Travels Through France And Italy
Audiobook · Fantastica

Travels Through France And Italy

Author
Tobias Smollett
Read by
Finian Silverwood
Language
English
Length
14 hours 8 minutes
ISBN
9781802566963
Published
26 June 2025
Imprint
Fantastica
  • Smollett
  • adventure
  • picaresque
  • classic
  • travel
  • voyages
  • adventure stories
  • history
  • historic
  • mysterious

Description

In Travels Through France and Italy , Tobias Smollett offers a sharp-witted and often acerbic account of his 1765 journey across continental Europe. Written in the form of letters, the narrative captures Smollett’s observations on the customs, manners, politics, and social conditions of France and Italy during the mid-18th century. With little patience for foreign eccentricities or perceived backwardness, Smollett delivers biting commentary on everything from French cuisine and Italian architecture to medical practices and local superstitions. Though often critical and biased, his travelogue provides a vivid and historically rich portrait of Enlightenment-era Europe through the eyes of a skeptical, opinionated Englishman. Combining satire with cultural insight, it remains a classic of early travel literature.

Author

Tobias Smollett (1721–1771) wrote picaresque novels of sailors, scoundrels, and a Scotland on the make. A surgeon before he was a novelist, he never lost the medical stare: bodies, ships, and social climbers observed without perfume. Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, and Humphry Clinker made English fiction louder, ruder, and more mobile. The comedy is rough; the letters in Clinker still feel like a nation talking to itself.

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