Author and poet Tobias Smollett was born - On this day in history

Scottish author and poet Tobias Smollett was born in Renton on 19 March 1721. Smollett was educated at Glasgow University, where he qualified as a surgeon, practising medicine in both Jamaica and London. After his marriage to Anne Lascelles he began to write books and poems, with his first work The Tears of Scotland, about the Battle of Culloden, published in the mid 1740s. His most famous work was The Adventures of Roderick Random, published in 1748.
 
Smollett edited The Critical Review before being imprisoned for libel. His final work was The Expedition of Humphry Clinker.