The Adventures of Roderick Random - Livres de poche

Tobias Smollett was an 18th century Scottish author. He was educated at the University of Glasgow with the intent of following a career in medicine. He traveled to London to become a playwright and when that failed he became a naval surgeon sailing on the Chichester to Jamaica where he lived for several years. The Adventures of Roderick Random was published in 1748. This picaresque novel is also a satire of the picaresque novels of the period. Random was the son of a nobleman and a lower class woman. Shortly after Random's birth his mother dies and his father goes mad from grief. The family of his father shuns him. After his father's family throws him out Roderick and his friend Hugh Strap, a simple-hearted barber's apprentice and former schoolmate of Roderick's, end up serving twice on British ships. Random spends most of his time on land trying to marry a wealthy woman so he can live in comfort