Travels Through France and Italy

Smollett used the opportunity to deride the social norms of the Kingdom of France and the Italian states, and to voice his Anti-Catholicism.

The book inspired a reply in the novel A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) by Laurence Sterne, which contained a satirical depiction of Smollett as Smelfungus.

Smollett describes in great detail the natural phenomena, history, social life, economics, diet and morals of the places he visited.

Smollett quarrels with innkeepers, postilions and fellow travellers, and holds many (though by no means all) foreigners who he meets in contempt.

He voices his own Anti-Catholicism, and derides duelling, petty and proud nobility, such domestic arrangements as the cicisbeo (an 'approved' lover of a married woman), and many other French and Italian customs.