The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

In 18th century Britain, before the genre of the novel was firmly established and its rules and typical properties codified, a variety of experimental pieces of prose fiction were published. One of these was The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, written by the author and physician Tobias Smollett in 1751. This work is a picaresque narrative, a genre which doesn’t use a continuous plot line, but instead strings together various adventures or episodes from the life of its protagonist in order to satirize or illuminate something about the surrounding culture. What this often means is that the protagonist doesn’t evolve or progress along an arc, the way we now expect novel characters to do. Rather, the character stumbles from scene to scene unchanged, mostly as a way for the author to display and mock the ins and outs of different kinds of social circles, power structures, or cultural morals or ethics.

The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle opens when our erstwhile hero is a young country gentleman. Peregrine is completely carefree, deeply self-centered, unwilling to acknowledge authority, and eager to get into adventure. Peregrine hates his cruel and unloving mother and his morally-compromised brother – and they both hate him in return. His father, on the other hand, simply doesn’t care about Peregrine or anyone else.

After his alienation from his nuclear family reaches a breaking point, Peregrine is adopted by his loving and deeply eccentric uncle, Commodore Hawser Trunnion, and goes to live with him on the man’s estate. Trunnion is a completely odd character. For example, because he used to be a seaman, he operates his house like his old warship – including the tradition of shooting cannon fire from its roof daily. His neighbors object, but can do nothing in the fact of the Commodore’s wealth and power. Also staying in Trunnion’s house are his old shipmates, Lieutenant Hatchway and boatswain Tom Pipes, who talk to each other entirely in nautical-themed jargon, puns and references.



Trunnion indulges Peregrine’s every whim and spoils him in all possible ways, raising the young man as befits a member of the most privileged class – a social status that apparently means that Peregrine can do whatever he wants with no repercussions.

What Peregrine most wants to do is play “pranks” on those around him. But here we should pause and discuss the ways in which some humor simply doesn’t age well. For whatever reason, 18th century audiences found what to us reads as rather shocking violence as funny – so it may help to think of what Peregrine and his friends get up to as Smollett’s version of pratfalls and slapstick. Still, because Smollett is also trying to emphasize the deplorable stupidity, cruelty, and greed that are destroying the world, Peregrine’s shenanigans are very much meant to be seen as extreme. For example, at one point, he and his friends steal a peasant’s fruit and then beat the man to death when he objects, laughing to realize that now his family will have to become beggars. It’s meant to be horrible, but not quite as sociopathic and irredeemable as we would find it now.

From Trunnion’s house, Peregrine continues to Oxford where he is educated. After getting his degree, the young man takes a year to travel around Europe in what was called “The Grand Tour,” although he mostly stays in Paris, chases women, overindulges in alcohol and participates in a variety of pranks. Here is one described by George Orwell: “When, for instance, an unfortunate English painter is thrown into the Bastille for some trifling offence and is about to be released, Peregrine and his friends, playing on his ignorance of the language, let him think he has been sentenced to be broken on a wheel. A little later they tell him that his punishment has been commuted to castration.”



On returning to England, Peregrine continues living on the edge as a con man. In London, he siphons money from wealthy high-society people with the help of a fake magician who pretends to read fortunes. Later, in the resort town of Bath, he pretends to be a doctor, which allows Smollett to spoof his own profession and its self-seriousness a bit. Somehow during all this, he finds time to fall in love with the beautiful heiress Emilia, who returns his feelings.
The book is interrupted at this point with an interpolated narrative that has nothing to do with Peregrine or his adventures. Titled “The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality,” and written by the memoirist Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane, this is an independent story that follows the romantic adventures of an anonymous noble woman. This narrative is in the amatory fiction genre and describes a series of love affairs the heroine has with a variety of titled men.

However, at last Peregrine’s fortunes turn and he himself is swindled into losing all of his money, falling into debt, and being imprisoned in the Fleet debtors prison. The novel ends with yet another reversal of fortune, when Peregrine suddenly and unexpectedly inherits 80,000 pounds (about $20 million in today’s money) from his father and is able to repay his debts. Not only that, but he can also now marry Emilia after all. Having learned a valuable lesson in prison, Peregrine repents his terrible behavior and promises to live the rest of his life in a less destructive and antisocial way.

Although Smollett’s work may not have aged as well as he could have hoped, it is still a fascinating piece of literary history. For one thing, buried in some of the side characters are caricatures of Smollett’s enemies – basically, authors whose work garnered much greater renown, like Henry Fielding. At the same time, some of the greatest novelists of the next century were influenced by The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. For instance, Charles Dickens is supposed to have based the character of Wemmick, the closed-off but secretly gentle assistant to the vicious lawyer Mr. Jaggers in Great Expectations, on Trunnion.