Five different narrators (all related by blood, more or less) write to their bosom buds about their journey across Britain, which is taken for the health of elderly Mr. Bramble. Though they largely undergo the same adventures, they observe quite different things from their encounters, taking away quite different lessons. It's a cool concept, particularly considering Humphry Clinker was conceived in the early days of the novel. The trouble is that some of the characters (ahem, Mr. Bramble) have a pretty tedious voice and are used mostly as a mouthpiece for the author to preach at the audience. If we had more of the pompous Tabitha Bramble or the barely literate Winifred Jenkins, my attention might have been kept for longer.

As it was, I often found my mind wandering - not helped by the fact that there isn't really much of a plot, more a series of events that prove less inventive or amusing that either Henry Fielding or Charles Dickens, who show in Tom Jones and and Pickwick Papers respectively how a sequence of individual, sometimes absurd scenes can be linked into an overarching narrative with key motifs.

Still, the form of the novel is admirable. To put it in literary terms, the sujet is far superior to the fabula.