The New Gil Blas

The New Gil Blas, or Pedro of Penaflor is a novel by Henry David Inglis, the Scottish travel writer and novelist who lived from 1795 to 1835. The book was published in 1830 and is one of Inglis’s less famous works, written in the picaresque tradition and modelled openly on the eighteenth century French novel Gil Blas of Santillane by Alain René Lesage.

The original Gil Blas, published in stages between 1715 and 1735, had been one of the most successful European novels of the eighteenth century, recounting the adventures of a Spanish young man who travels through various social settings in Spain serving as valet, secretary, and confidential agent to a long succession of employers of various social ranks and moral characters. The book had been widely translated and widely imitated across the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and various national versions of the basic premise had appeared in English, German, and other European languages.

Inglis’s New Gil Blas applies the same basic structure to a Spanish setting in the early nineteenth century, with his young protagonist Pedro of Penaflor passing through a series of employments and adventures that allow the author to display various scenes from contemporary Spanish life. Inglis had himself travelled extensively in Spain during the late 1820s and had published a substantial travel book on Spain shortly before the novel appeared. The picaresque format gave him the opportunity to use his Spanish material in fictional form, with the central character moving through cities and regions Inglis had personally visited.

The novel is competent rather than distinguished. The picaresque form was already feeling slightly dated by 1830 and Inglis was working in a tradition that the major novelists of his own generation were largely moving beyond. The Spanish material is generally well observed and reflects Inglis’s serious knowledge of the country, but the literary execution does not equal the great original or the major nineteenth century novels that were appearing during the same years.

The book is mostly of interest now to readers of early nineteenth century British fiction about Spain and to enthusiasts of the picaresque tradition. It pairs naturally with Inglis’s travel writings on Spain.