Tobias Smollett, Anthony Walker, and the First Illustrated Serial Novel in English Robert Folkenflik This essay is designed to answer a surprising print culture question : was the firstillustrated serial novel in English, Tobias Smollett 's The Life and Adventures ofSir Launcelot Greaves (1761-62), illustrated ? This may sound rather like "Who's buried in Grant's tomb?" The answer is not as obvious. In discussing the practice and achievement ofAnthony Walker (1726-1765), the most underrated British book illustrator of the eighteenth century, I intend also to show how attention to the illustrations can help answer questions about the composition of this novel in particular, and perhaps others. The publication of Sir Launcelot Greaves in the British Magazine, a newjournal which Smollett owned, was an ambitious and innovative venture. In addition to being the first illustrated serial novel, it was the longest serial novel yet to appear in England, and one of the few by a major author. Smollett's shortest novel (with his longest chapters) appeared in the first two full years of publication of the British Magazine (1760-61), including an extra number to bring the total to twenty-five chapters.1 1 Tobias Smollett, The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, ed. Robert Folkenflik (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2002). References are to this edition. Drawing upon the introduction and notes, this essay gives a fuller account of some issues and includes illustrations that do not appear there. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 14, Numbers 3-4, April-July 2002 508EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION Though Smollett may be in part to blame, Sir Launcelot Greaves has been the victim ofa rather inaccurate and incomplete reception history that has made it seem less highly regarded than it actually was.2 Those considering the reputation of Sir Launcelot Greaves have often concerned themselves with the puzzle of whether it is better or worse than Ferdinand Count Fathom—whether it is the worst of Smollett's five novels or the next to worst. There was, however, far more early praise than the accepted history of the book's reputation suggests, even when allowances are made for how the first reviews came about. Smollett, as an owner and editor of the Critical Review as well as the British Magazine, was at the centre of literary Britain, both as writer and employer. The history of the reception of this novel should help to remind us that Smollett was not just a novelist , historian, dramatist, and poet, but a producer of literature, the sort of figure who helps to make postmodern arguments about the writer seem rather commonsensical. Both the serial and book publication were ushered in by favourable responses, some of which were connected with, if not totally orchestrated by, Smollett himself. One could argue that many of the early responses had more to do with the history of marketing than with reader reception—that they were more publicity and advertising than criticism. Nevertheless, the contrast with Ferdinand Count Fathom, which had only one contemporary review, is striking. In some sense, criticism of Sir Launcelot Greaves begins within the novel itselfin a passage where, following Sir Launcelot's first appearance , he and Ferret get into a metafictional argument about the relation ofDon Quixote to his project of knight-errantry: What! ... you set up for a modern Don Quixote?—The scheme is rather too stale and extravagant.—What was an humorous romance, and well-timed satire in Spain, near two hundred years ago, will make but a sorry jest, and appear equally insipid and absurd, when really acted from affectation, at this time aday , in a country like England, (p. 15) Sir Launcelot's response shows that he is a close student of the Quixote character: He that from affectation imitates the extravagances recorded ofDon Quixote, is an imposter equally wicked and contemptible. He that counterfeits madness 2 Fred W. Boege's account in Smollett's Reputation as a Novelist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947) of the reception of SirLauncelot Greaves is incomplete and confusing. I consider its reception in the introduction to SirLauncelot Greaves, pp. xxi-xxv. TOBIAS SMOLLETT AND ANTHONY WALKER 509 ... not only debases his own soul, but acts...