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O M Brack Jr., ed., Tobias Smollett, Scotland's First Novelist: New Essays in Memory of Paul-Gabriel Boucé

This splendid collection of essays is a fitting tribute to the memory of PaulGabriel Boucé (1936–2004), widely regarded as the most influential Smollett scholar of his generation. As Serge Soupel testifies in his moving biographical sketch (29–34) of his former teacher and colleague at the Sorbonne, Boucé made an indelible mark on those around him as teacher, administrator, and scholar. In the world of Smollett studies, Boucé will be remembered not only because of his many books, articles, and critical editions but also because of his generous support of the work of others. O M Brack Jr., the editor of the volume, sums up that ‘‘his work is now the starting point for anyone wishing to write on Smollett’’ (15) and acknowledges Boucé’s crucial early endorsement of the Works of Tobias Smollett, a project that, thanks to Brack’s persistence and guidance, is nearing its completion, forty years after Boucé agreed that such an edition was long overdue. In addition to the introduction, in which he briefly outlines Smollett’s critical reputation, the story of the Smollett edition, and the role Boucé played in advancing both, Brack contributes a masterly essay (35–73) in which he assesses the evidence for the authorship of ‘‘The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality,’’ an account of the scandalous life of the aptly named Lady Vane (1715–88) appearing as the lengthy chapter 88 (171 pages) in the first edition of Peregrine Pickle (1751). As he demolishes the case against Smollett’s authorship made by Howard Swazey Buck in his A Study in Smollett, Chiefly ‘‘Peregrine Pickle’’ (1925), Brack demonstrates the dangers of what Boucé, in his groundbreaking Les romans de Smollett (1971)—published in English as The Novels of Tobias Smollett (1976)—called ‘‘inverted autobiogra-