You can call me Dr. Fathom. Or Count Fathom. But I’m not who I say I am. And can you blame me? My mother was a soldiers’ harlot who pocketed extra loot by wandering through the battlefield stripping the dead and dying of valuables. I don’t even know who my father was, except he must have had my handsome looks. People liked looking at me. And people liked how I talked too. Early on, I learned that telling the truth didn’t get you the same quick reward as telling them what they wanted to hear, being assiduously charming, dissimulating. In a word, lying. I became good at it. And I became the favorite of a rich Hungarian count who took me in and coaxed his pathetically naïve son to look up to me and learn to be like me. Ha! How I wanted to sell my soul to trade places with Renaldo! I wanted his money. I wanted his beautiful life. I wanted his beautiful wife — at least for an extra notch on my belt. This is the story of how I went about achieving those things. It was easy, especially at first. Because, to tell the truth, people secretly yearn for tall tales. – Summary by Arthur Krolman     [chương_files]  

The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle is a picaresque novel by the Scottish author Tobias Smollett (1721 – 1771), first published in 1751, and revised and reissued in 1758. It is the story of the fortunes and misfortunes of the egotistical dandy Peregrine Pickle, and it provides a comic and caustic portrayal of 18th century European society. (Summary by Wikipedia)     [chương_files]  

Volume II continues the story of the fortunes and misfortunes of the egotistical dandy Peregrine Pickle. The novel is written as a series of adventures, with every chapter typically describing a new adventure. There is also a very long independent story, “The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality”, written by Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane, inside the novel. Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane (1715 – 1788), known as Lady Fanny, was a British memoirist known for her highly public adulterous relationships. (Wikipedia )     [chương_files]