Peregrine rescues the scantily clad Emilia from a burning inn, a typical picaresque episode from Smollett’s satire. “. . . a pert jackanapes.” The exploits of the egotistical Peregrine Pickle are the subject of Tobias Smollett’s second novel. While the episodic construction and interpolated narratives are reminiscent of Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle is more than a repetition of an earlier narrative. Peregrine is a fallible hero and this is emphasized by the frequently critical tone of the third-person omniscient narrator. The son of a short line of moderately successful merchants, Peregrine is despised by his own mother and adopted by his eccentric uncle, whose exploits provide much of the humor in the early part of the novel. Peregrine enjoys a privileged education that compounds his own misguided sense of self-importance. He undertakes the Grand Tour, traveling through Europe amid a profusion of excess, sexual intrigue, and rakish conduct and, on his return to London, attempts to ingratiate himself into fashionable society and political circles. He aspires to marriage with an heiress as a way of rising to the ranks of the nobility. However, Peregrine’s ambitions are thwarted by his own destructive and corrupt behavior, demonstrating his inability to conduct himself in a manner appropriate to his financial standing. Eventually, during his incarceration in the Fleet prison, Pickle reforms. He marries Emilia and adopts the life of a country gentleman removed from the evils of fashionable society. Despite the work’s scatological humor, Smollett’s satire engages with some serious concerns, such as the arbitrariness of French justice and the threat posed to social order by contemporary commercialization. Peregrine has to learn the responsibilities and privileges of social position before he can truly value his ultimate reward: a quiet life of felicity with his beloved Emilia. LMar