Audiobooks by Tobias Smollett

The Adventures of Roderick Random Audiobook

"Tobias Smollett, in his creation of the Scot Roderick Random, exposes the sheer incompetence and injustice of the Royal Navy, as well as the snobbery and hypocrisy prevalent in English middle-class society at the time. Set in the mid-18th century, this picaresque novel follows the life and adventures of Roderick, the eponymous hero who has been shunned by his gentleman father's family on the basis of the lowliness of his mother's family. Expelled from school, Roderick falls back on his natural wit and the support of his maternal uncle. Embarking on a global voyage, hindered by his naivete and with only a few friends to help him, he pursues the rich ladies of the world in order to rise into the high society from which he was rudely ejected. He ends up twice serving on British ships, latterly a warship onto which he is press-ganged. Where will his travels take him?"

Tobias Smollett (Author), Peter Kenny (Narrator)

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Song..While with fond rapture

"LibriVox volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Song by Tobias Smollett. This is the weekly poem starting from October 16th, 2011. It's a lovely love song. ( Summary by Stav Nisser ) Taken from the Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett by Thomas Gray et al. Smollett, for variety of powers, and indefatigable industry, has seldom been surpassed. He was a politician, a poet, a physician, a historian, a translator, a writer of travels, a dramatist, a novelist, a writer on medical subjects, and a miscellaneous author. It is only, however, as a novelist and a poet that he has any claims to the admiration of posterity.(Summary from the Explanatory Notes by The Rev. George Gilfillan, Edinburgh)"

Tobias Smollett (Author), LibriVox Volunteers (Narrator)

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The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (Volume I)

"The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle is a picaresque novel by the Scottish author Tobias Smollett (1721 - 1771), first published in 1751, and revised and reissued in 1758. It is the story of the fortunes and misfortunes of the egotistical dandy Peregrine Pickle, and it provides a comic and caustic portrayal of 18th century European society. (Summary by Wikipedia)"

Tobias Smollett (Author), LibriVox Volunteers (Narrator)

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The Adventures of Roderick Random

"I am Roderick Random. This is the contemporary story of my struggle against the adversity of orphan-hood, poverty, press gangs, bloody duels, rival fortune hunters, and the challenge to be well-dressed through it all. In the course of recounting my adventures to you, dear reader, I will give you a front row seat to the characters of English eighteenth century life including highway robbers, womanizing monks, debt-laden gallants, lecherous corrupt officials, effeminate sea captains, bloodthirsty surgeons, and my dear friend Miss Williams, a reformed prostitute. Educated in the classics, armed with a confident conscientious attitude and my long-suffering sidekick, Strap, I fight the good fight staying, on the whole, morally upstanding throughout. Today, if there be such a thing as true happiness on earth, I enjoy it -- and without having spent a fortune on college either. After hearing me out, I expect you'll be as wonderfully transported as one dear wealthy gentleman who listened to my whole story and then blessed God for the adversity I had undergone, which, he said, enlarged the understanding, improved the heart, steeled the constitution, and qualified a young man for all the duties and enjoyments of life much better than any education which affluence could bestow. Summary by Arthur Krolman."

Tobias Smollett (Author), Arthur Krolman (Narrator)

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Verses on a Young Lady

"LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Verses on a Young Lady Playing on a Harpsicord and Singing by Tobias Smollett. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 21st, 2010. Tobias George Smollett (19 March 1721 - 17 September 1771) was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751), which influenced later novelists such as Charles Dickens. (summary by Wikipedia)"

Tobias Smollett (Author), LibriVox Volunteers (Narrator)

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Roderick Random (Unabridged)

"Roderick Random is a boisterous and unprincipled hero who answers life's many misfortunes with a sledgehammer. Left penniless, he leaves his native Scotland for London and on the way meets Strap, and old schoolfellow. Together they undergo many adventures at the hands of scoundrels and rogues. Roderick qualifies as a surgeon's mate and is pressed as a common soldier on board the man-of-war Thunder. In a tale of romance as well as adventure, Roderick also finds time to fall in love."

Tobias Smollett (Author), Gabriel Woolf (Narrator)

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