Humphry Clinker (1967): Edited by Angus Ross (Penguin English Library) By Tobias Smollett

Tough, splenetic, and widely experienced, of all the great novelists of his time Tobias Smollett is the one who registered best the bawdy, brutal side of eighteenth-century life. Towards the end of his life, however, he grew mellower, and Humphry Clinker (1771) is a tale of high good humour. Squire Bramble's picaresque tour of the Britain of George III has enough eccentric characters and comic adventures for several lifetimes, and a wealth of local colour.

The cover shows a detail of 'Vauxhall Gardens' from an engraving by Pollard after Rowlandson in the Victoria and Albert Museum.