Roderick Random (1748), Smollett's first novel, is full of the dazzling vitality characteristics of all his work, as well as of his own life. Roderick is the boisterous and unprincipled hero who answers life's many misfortunes with a sledgehammer. Left penniless, he leaves his native Scotland for London and on the way meets Strap, and old schoolfellow. Together they undergo many adventures at the hands of scoundrels and rogues. Roderick qualifies as a surgeon's mate and is pressed as a common soldier on bord the man-of-war Thunder. In a tale of romance as well as adventure, Roderick also finds time to fall in love... Smollett drew on his own experiences as a surgeon's mate in the navy for the memorable scenes on board ship, and the novel combines documentary realism with great humour and panache.

Sailing boats reminds me - I have just read Smollett's Roderick Random which, as you probably know, is our chief literary document for the life of the navy in the 18th century. It is there that Captain Whiffle orders the officer out of the cabin because he cannot stand the stink of him. His picture as a whole is much what I expected - infernal. The resigned but bottomless contempt of all ranks for their senior officers, the certainty that everything is being mismanaged, and that the staff are fools and cowards is especially interesting: I suppose it is the normal state in all armies and navies. The book as a whole belongs to a type whose disappearance I do not much regret: the autobiographical novel in the form of memories of one who relates his misfortunes (for he is very unfortunate): that is, a string of frauds, oppressions and accidents piled on the hero in such a way as to give him the opportunity of fluctuating rapidly through all social strata, now 'a fine gentleman', now in a sponging house, pressed, imprisoned, etc. At one time he becomes a foot soldier in a French regiment. It is all very lively and will hold your attention wherever you open it: but the author's determination to ring the changes and show every side of the life of his times, by making it certain that whatever the hero is doing at the moment, some accident will completely reverse the position in the next ten pages, prevents the development of any continuous interest. Like Tom Jones, it uses the device of a story in a story and Roderick is constantly meeting people who at once tell him their story. (You will remember one instance of this in Tom Jones.) This, together with the rambling episodes, recalls the structure (tho' not of course the atmosphere) of the Faerie Queene. In fact in reading this, Tom Jones, and Evelina (which I have also read recently for the first time) I was struck by the real identity of method between the medieval romance and the early novel, and also by the wonderful reform that Scott and Jane Austen effected in reaching the modern complex but unified plot.
- from a 9 July 1927 letter to his brother, in The collected letters of C.S. Lewis, volume I ( )

An 18-century English picaresque novel with more than a dash of fatalism. Somehow Roderick Random suffers misfortune after misfortune as he drifts from one pummeling to another and still manages to hold on to his spirit. ( )