Tobias Smollett 
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom 

Tobias Smollett was a man of letters in the fullest sense. Trained as a physician, he was not only a novelist but also a playwright, poet, journalist, historian, travel writer, critic, translator, and editor. The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom is Smollett’s third novel. The book leads the reader through the life and adventures of the villainous dandy, Ferdinand, Count Fathom

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Tobias George Smollett was born in Dalquhurn, now part of Renton, Scotland, to a prosperous family and educated at the University of Glasgow, where he studied to be a physician. Later he joined the British Royal Navy as a surgeon’s mate. He was present at the disastrous battle against the Spanish at Cartagena in 1741.

He married a British woman Anne Lascelles, in Jamaica, 1747, and settled in England. In London, as a writer, he became successful. The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), a picaresque novel – like most of his books – made him a well known author. It was followed by The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle in 1751. But the failure of The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753) caused financial difficulties for him. Publishing The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1762) didn’t help.

Writing poems, plays, travel and history books, essays, satires, doing translations and even becoming a literary critic and magazine editor, Dr. Smollett struggled all his short life against poverty, he traveled to Italy, to regain his health, but died of tuberculosis near Livorno, in 1771. Ironically finishing his masterpiece, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, a few months before his death.

Charles Dickens was a great admirer of Tobias Smollett, even visiting his gravesite.