"Traduced by malice, persecuted by fiction, abandoned by false patrons, and overwhelmed by the sense of a domestic calamity", Tobias Smollett set off on a journey through France and Italy to relieve his despair. While there, he wrote regularly to his friends, who had asked him to keep records of inns, prices, and methods of transport should they wish to make the tour themselves someday. Smollett more than obliged them, and the result is this fascinating, wholeheartedly personal account of places and people in France and Italy. In one of the letters, Smollett makes his famous forecast that France would be in trouble as soon as a weak monarch came to power; in another he recommends the Roman Campania be drained and cultivated - a recommendation that was carried out in the Pontine Marshes in 1932-34. But Smollett is at his best when describing the inns and housekeepers, postilions and travelers. Travels through France and Italy is a landmark work in travel literature. Full of prejudice, grousing, sharp observation, and caustic satire, it is the first travel book in modern literature to go beyond the simple conveyance of information to reflect the writer's state of mind.