T Smollett

"The Adventures of Roderick Random" is a picaresque novel by Tobias Smollett, first published in 1748. It is partially based on Smollett's experience as a naval-surgeon's mate in the British Navy, especially during the Battle of Cartagena de Indias in 1741. Roderick is combative, often violent, but capable of great affection and generosity. His father had been disinherited and has left Scotland leaving his son penniless. After a brief apprenticeship...

Hailed by Dostoyevsky as The final and greatest utterance of the human mind," Don Quixote constitutes a founding work of modern Western literature. Cervantes' masterpiece has been translated into more than sixty languages, and the novel's fantasy-driven "knight," Don Quixote, and his loyal squire, Sancho Panza, rank among fiction's most recognized characters. Their adventures have been interpreted for film, opera, and ballet, and they head a cast...