Smollett’s Women: A Study in an Eighteenth-Century Masculine Sensibility

Although Smollett’s obvious masculine sensibility has become a commonplace in criticism of the 18th-century novel, the basis and particularities of that sensibility have never been examined. In actuality, his treatment of women–heroines, victims, and comic or grotesque–proves far more complex than conventional commentary suggests. This study attempts to show that in each category Smollett’s treatment depends on the fictional purposes that these characters serve in his novels.