"18th C. novels written in 18th C.?" Topic

Anyone have a line on 18th C. novels that they really liked? I am looking for ones actually written around that time, as well as taking place in that time.

So Bernard Cornwell is out, for example.

Naturally, as a wargamer, I'd like battles, action and some adventure, also.

The origins of this post was the very fun "Simplicimmus" which a European friend of mine insisted I read, and it was in fact a lot of fun.

"The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy" by Laurence Stern.

Look up Walpole. He wrote several mid-century.

AFAIK, there weren't a lot. Novels were only becoming popular at the end of the 18th century, at least in the US, as education became more widespread among the general populace.

You can't do better than _Tristram Shandy_, but it is a challenging read and actually contains no swashbuckling -- that's pretty much a C19 convention.

Of course there's Defoe, with _Crusoe_ and _Moll Flanders_; Swift with Gulliver; Samuel Richardson's _Pamela_ is regarded as the first real novel by some; Smollet's _Humphrey Clinker_ is entertaining, and at the end of the century, Mrs. Radcliffe's insane _Mysteries of Udolpho_ -- the first gothic.

My wife is an English professor!

Justine, by the Marquis De Sade. : )

I suspect that there's very little with a military twist actually written in the 18thC. I suspect the nearest you'll get is James Fenimore Cooper. "Last of the Mohicans" set in the FIW/7YW dates from 1826. Thackeray's "Barry Lyndon"(7YW) was published in 1844.

I found Voltaire's "Candide" to be surprisingly entertaining for a classroom assignment lo these many years ago. It's got a fair amount of swashbuckling and general silliness, but then it's a comedy in line with "The Pirates of Penzance". Published in 1759.

Jeff Ewing hit most of them. Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones are also good. There's a lot of others but they aren't in English and very hard to find.

I love Tom Jones. Its great for 18th century popular culture and its a really funny book. Get a copy with good explanatory notes (I read the Penguin edition -Mutter was the editor). It has some military stuff- local militia marching off to smite the Jacobites, etc. You can learn a good deal about class and language from it- for example the line: "Now the highest order of mortals were sitting down to their dinners, and the lowest order to their suppers." Robinson Crusoe is such a poorly written story, to me, full of holes. I started reading Matthew Lewis' The Monk but never got very far. I love Scott's Waverley and Cooper's The Spy: both are early 19th century, though, but full of swashbuckling. Candide is good and scathing.

Smollet's Roderick Random includes an account of the disastrous British expedition against Spanish America in 1741 – Smollet was a naval surgeon on the expedition himself.

Well, I hope Roderick random is better than Tristram Shandy! I'll give it a go! tired reading some of Walter Scott's lesser known works a couple yers ago. Now I know why they're lesser known!

The Monk scared the bejeebers out of me!

Yeah, Scott is like that. Waverley was the most popular and it is still a good read (long, though). Ivanhoe is good. I could not finish Heart of Midlothian -Cooper is that way too. Spy and Mohicans are great, the others – meh.

Try some plays , more of them around..

Robert Louis Stevenson

For a *very* imaginative 18th C. novel, Restif de La Bretonne published in 1781 the Découverte australe par un Homme-volant, ou le Dédale français
link
('Austral discovery by a Flying-man, or the French Daedalus')

Very weird races are encountered in the antipodes:

link
Plates: link

'The memoirs of Fanny Hill, a Woman of Pleasure'? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Hill
Specially interesting for the implied (Lacepulp) gaming potential is the first 'reference in literary works' quoted on Wikipedia: link

Restif de la Bretonne "The Voltaire of the chambermaids"

wrote a lot, but long forgotten and unavailable even in French link

Maurice de Saxe's Rêveries are not a novel, but his project of Roman inspired 'Legions' supported by extra-heavy cavalry in full armor (evolved from the Polish heavy hussars) and dragoons

is a 'military fiction' of a kind. link

A lot of the mentioned novels are available free & in a range of formats for you favourite ereader from " project gutenberg.org. Free because of lapsed copyright.

Whilst not a novel, this programme may be of interest, it discusses to origin of the noval in the 18thC, where it was normal to write novels in the form of letters:

link

It was the redcoats in 'Kidnapped' that set the tone for my imagined C18th years ago when I was a kid and it was dramatised on TV- seen hunting down rebels after the '45. Ever Since and with readings of the novel (albeit C19th), Davy Balfour remains the quintessential C18th adventure hero for me. Followed closely by Hawkeye in LOTM, (on screen but not in the book as the book is somewhat tedious).

Tristram Shandy is not only an 18th century novel, but describes Uncle Toby's garden WSS wargame! Did Sterne actually know an early wargamer, or was the concept of refighting historical battles in miniature his own idea, I wonder?
In either case, a book every wargamer should read….

Arthur1815:

Oh yeah. Wargaming with both figures and boardgames has been around for long time. Garden wargames tended to by the domain of the rich though.

I've even found logistics wargames, produced as early as 1715.

Some people do not like reading the novel but watch 'the film of the book' – please do not do this with 'Tristram Shandy: a cock and bull story' – the film is a dreadful mismash and more about the clashes between the actors making the film than the book itself.