The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, by Tobias Smollett

Table of Contents

  1. Some sage observations that naturally introduce our important history.
  2. A superficial view of our hero’s infancy.
  3. He is initiated in a military life, and has the good fortune to acquire a generous patron.
  4. His mother’s prowess and death; together with some instances of his own sagacity.
  5. A brief detail of his education.
  6. He meditates schemes of importance.
  7. Engages in partnership with a female associate, in order to put his talents in action.
  8. Their first attempt; with a digression which some readers may think impertinent.
  9. The confederates change their battery, and achieve a remarkable adventure.
  10. They proceed to levy contributions with great success, until our hero sets out with the young count for Vienna, where he enters into league with another adventurer.
  11. Fathom makes various efforts in the world of gallantry.
  12. He effects a lodgment in the house of a rich jeweller.
  13. He is exposed to a most perilous incident in the course of his intrigue with the daughter.
  14. He is reduced to a dreadful dilemma, in consequence of an assignation with the wife.
  15. But at length succeeds in his attempt upon both.
  16. His success begets a blind security, by which he is once again well-nigh entrapped in his Dulcinea’s apartment.
  17. The step-Dame’s suspicions being awakened, she lays a snare for our adventurer, from which he is delivered by the interposition of his good genius.
  18. Our hero departs from Vienna, and quits the domain of Venus for the rough field of Mars.
  19. He puts himself under the guidance of his associate, and stumbles upon the French camp, where he finishes his military career.
  20. He prepares a stratagem but finds himself countermined — proceeds on his journey, and is overtaken by a terrible tempest.
  21. He falls upon Scylla, seeking to avoid Charybdis.
  22. He arrives at Paris, and is pleased with his reception.
  23. Acquits himself with address in a nocturnal riot.
  24. He overlooks the advances of his friends, and smarts severely for his neglect.
  25. He bears his fate like a philosopher; and contracts acquaintance with a very remarkable personage.
  26. The history of the noble Castilian.
  27. A flagrant instance of Fathom’s virtue, in the manner of his retreat to England.
  28. Some account of his fellow-travellers.
  29. Another providential deliverance from the effects of the smuggler’s ingenious conjecture.
  30. The singular manner of Fathom’s attack and triumph over the virtue of the fair Elenor.
  31. He by accident encounters his old friend, with whom he holds a conference, and renews a treaty.
  32. He appears in the great world with universal applause and admiration.
  33. He attracts the envy and ill offices of the minor knights of his own order, over whom he obtains a complete victory.
  34. He performs another exploit, that conveys a true idea of his gratitude and honour.
  35. He repairs to bristol spring, where he reigns paramount during the whole season.
  36. He is smitten with the charms of a female adventurer, whose allurements subject him to a new vicissitude of fortune.
  37. Fresh cause for exerting his equanimity and fortitude.
  38. The biter is bit.
  39. Our adventurer is made acquainted with a new scene of life.
  40. He contemplates majesty and its satellites in eclipse.
  41. One quarrel is compromised, and another decided by unusual arms.
  42. An unexpected rencontre, and a happy revolution in the affairs of our adventurer.
  43. Fathom justifies the proverb, “What’s bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh.”
  44. Anecdotes of poverty, and experiments for the benefit of those whom it may concern.
  45. Renaldo’s distress deepens, and Fathom’s plot thickens.
  46. Our adventurer becomes absolute in his power over the passions of his friend, and effects one half of his aim.
  47. The art of borrowing further explained, and an account of a strange phenomenon.
  48. Count Fathom unmasks his battery; is repulsed; and varies his operations without effect.
  49. Monimia’s honour is protected by the interposition of heaven.
  50. Fathom shifts the scene, and appears in a new character.
  51. Triumphs over a medical rival.
  52. Repairs to the metropolis, and enrols himself among the sons of paean.
  53. Acquires employment in consequence of a lucky miscarriage.
  54. His eclipse, and gradual declination.
  55. After divers unsuccessful efforts, he has recourse to the matrimonial noose.
  56. In which his fortune is effectually strangled.
  57. Fathom being safely housed, the reader is entertained with a retrospect.
  58. Renaldo abridges the proceedings at law, and approves himself the son of his father.
  59. He is the messenger of happiness to his sister, who removes the film which had long obstructed his penetration, with regard to Count Fathom.
  60. He recompenses the attachment of his friend; and receives a letter that reduces him to the verge of death and distraction.
  61. Renaldo meets with a living monument of justice, and encounters a personage of some note in these memoirs.
  62. His return to England, and midnight pilgrimage to Monimia’s tomb.
  63. He renews the rites of sorrow, and is entranced.
  64. The mystery unfolded — another recognition, which, it is to be hoped, the reader could not foresee.
  65. A retrospective link, necessary for the concatenation of these memoirs.
  66. The history draws near a period.
  67. The longest and the last.
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