The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves by Tobias Smollett (1762)

Smollett's shortest and least known book is brilliant. This story of a latter-day knight errant, really a gentleman who has been saddened by the loss of his sweetheart, wandering the English countryside and getting lost in farces and scrapes mainly brought about by the shenanigans of his cohort or the people they knock into along the way, is likenable to a long ribbon of varying colour. Many of Smollett's pet subjects are there - the verbosity of the legal profession, the quackery of doctors, the scheisterhood of astrologers and fortunetellers and, more broadly, the venality of humankind at its worst! But his other pets make it a very rounded meal - the soft deliciousness of love, the delight of a good human heart when rarely one is come across, the glorious silliness of obsessed humans too. In every one of his novels there is a character who could be played by no-one other than Brian Blessed. In this case it's Sam Crowe, a sea captain, whose language is as colourful as his curses are fulminous. He takes a liking to Greaves, and in an almost childlike way seeks to emulate him, his fancy completely taken by his idea of chivalry. In bilgewashed seagoing language he coruscates his way through adventure and misadventure - perplexed behind it all with why he doesn't quite cut the same dashing figure as our hero, and clothed ad hoc in jerkin and tinpot for helmet, where Launcelot has elegant armour and spurs. The plot revolves around Greaves' search for his Aurelia, who has been spirited away by a disobliging uncle, and who lands up in secret hiding places and cast into bedlam. The supporting cast of the mad, the self-aggrandizing, the sneaky, the perpetually complaining, and the few good souls who represent hope, keep this liveliness bubbling, colourful and very joyous.