T. Smollett

Tobias Smollett (1721–1771) was born near Renton, Dunbartonshire, and trained as a surgeon's apprentice in Glasgow before going to sea as a naval surgeon's mate, serving at the disastrous siege of Cartagena in 1741. Settling in London, he turned the experience into his first novel, Roderick Random (1748), followed by Peregrine Pickle (1751) and Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753); he also translated Don Quixote (1755) and edited the Critical Review. Ill health sent him to Italy in his last years, where he wrote The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), his last novel, and died near Livorno months after its publication.