The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

About the book

Matthew Bramble takes members of his household through England and Scotland, seeking relief from ill health while finding ample material for complaints about modern life. The letters written by his relatives and servants reveal that the journey looks very different according to the observer's age, ambitions, education, and hopes for romance. Humphry Clinker's arrival adds an unexpected companion whose conduct complicates assumptions about social worth. Smollett uses the shared itinerary to create comparisons that no single narrator could supply. Spa towns, cities, roads, and lodgings become stages for bodily comedy and social criticism. The book's pleasure depends on hearing language disclose a character's limitations even when the writer believes an account perfectly clear, while the accumulating correspondence gradually makes the travellers' mutual dependence more visible.

• Perspective
• Class and manners
• Travel and community

Why read it

For a comic journey whose overlapping letters make differences in voice as entertaining as the incidents they describe.

Epistolary novel · English text