The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom follows the rise and fall of one of literature's most thoroughgoing scoundrels. Born of a camp-following mother on a battlefield, Fathom grows into a charming, conscienceless schemer who preys on every benefactor he meets. Sponsored by the noble Count de Melvil, he repays the family's kindness with betrayal, then roams across Europe—Vienna, Paris, London, and Bristol—seducing women, swindling gamblers, posing as a physician, and ensnaring his friend Renaldo and the virtuous Monimia in his plots. His triumphs breed recklessness, and a long chain of providential reversals at last drags him down toward ruin and abject repentance.
Smollett offers a bold experiment: a villain rather than a hero at the center of his picaresque. The novel anatomizes vice, hypocrisy, and the gullibility of polite society, while insisting that Providence ultimately exposes deceit and protects innocence. With its Gothic touches, biting satire, and study of a thoroughly corrupt mind, Fathom influenced later fiction and remains a sharp meditation on the seductive dangers of unprincipled ambition.
How it begins
CHAPTER TEN. 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 CHAPTER ELEVEN. Fathom makes various Efforts in the World of Gallantry CHAPTER TWELVE. He effects a Lodgment in the House of a rich Jeweller CHAPTER THIRTEEN. He is exposed to a most perilous Incident in the Course of his Intrigue with the Daughter CHAPTER FOURTEEN. He is reduced to a dreadful Dilemma, in consequence of an Assignation with the Wife CHAPTER FIFTEEN. But at length succeeds in his Attempt upon both CHAPTER SIXTEEN. His Success begets a blind Security, by which he is once again well-nigh entrapped in his Dulcinea’s Apartment CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. 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 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. Our Hero departs from Vienna, and quits the Domain of Venus for the rough Field of Mars CHAPTER NINETEEN. He puts himself under the Guidance of his Associate, and stumbles upon the French Camp, where he finishes his Military Career CHAPTER TWENTY. He prepares a Stratagem, but finds himself countermined—Proceeds on his Journey, and is overtaken by a terrible Tempest CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. He falls upon Scylla, seeking to avoid Charybdis. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain.