ABSTRACT
Written as a delightful picaresque and reminiscent of moments in Swift and Smollett, Jonathan Corncob has sometimes been called the first American novel. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the author was a loyalist employed in the Royal Navy who was also taken prisoner of war (Noel Perrin, Jonathan Corncob, 1976, p. xii). Another critic has suggested that the life of Corncob uncannily resembles that of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, who also clerked in a New England store, fished for cod, moved to Boston, and was attacked as a Tory in addition to serving in the Navy and abandoning his family (Heilman, America, pp. 74–5). Saddled with a father called Habakkuk and a mother called Charity, as well as brothers called Zedekias, Hannaniah, Melchisedeck, and Jeptha, and sisters called Supply and Increase, Jonathan the rustic picaro leaves home to escape a shotgun wedding (or a £50 fine) after getting a neighbouring girl called Desire Slawbunk pregnant through the amusing practice of ‘bundling.’
