“Classless and unconfined”

At the outset of the third decade of the twenty-first century, Tobias Smollett’s name remains far removed from the spotlight, the result of treatment by hostile nineteenth-century critics. This chapter breaks away from the banal confines of academic taxonomy and exposes the mind of a thinker who deserves to be considered alongside another often misunderstood, but somewhat better treated public intellectual, Albert Camus. Inspired by Smollett’s first and final novels, and the sadly overlooked study of Smollett’s life by Donald Bruce, the chapter shines a light on a universal Smollett, one whose majors works should be understood as timeless testaments to the human condition.