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4 unusual facts about The Adventures of Roderick Random


The Adventures of Roderick Random

He exposes the brutality, incompetence and injustice of the Royal Navy at the Battle of Cartagena in 1741 and in relation to preferment, promotion and medical support.

In the preface, Smollett acknowledges the connections of his novel to the two satirical picaresque works he translated into English: CervantesDon Quixote (1605–15) and Alain-René Lesage’s Gil Blas (1715–47)

It is partially based on Smollett's experience as a naval-surgeon’s mate in the British Navy, especially during Battle of Cartagena de Indias in 1741.

Tom King's Coffee House

Fielding mentions it in both The Covent Garden Tragedy and Pasquin and Tobias Smollett in The Adventures of Roderick Random.


Bumboat

In Tobias Smollett's 1748 novel The Adventures of Roderick Random, a "bumboat woman" conducts business with sailors imprisoned on board a pressing tender moored near the Tower Wharf on the Thames River, London, England.


see also