Beadle's Pocket Novels No. 216

About this issue

Peleg Smith: Adventures in the Tropics by Boynton H. Belknap, M.D., published by Beadle and Adams in 1880, presents an adventure novel set in South America. The narrative follows John Martin, a wealthy, good-natured English bachelor and inveterate traveler, who meets Peleg Smith, a cantankerous New England Yankee trying to sell a rat-catching terrier. The two form a partnership to explore the Orinoco River region. Martin, immunologically fortunate and perpetually amiable, contrasts sharply with Smith, whose provincial American nationalism and folksy manner emerge through comic dialect. The opening chapters establish their unlikely companionship, their acquisition of a guide—Jose, a Llanero—and their outfitting for journey southward toward Venezuela. Smith's characterization emphasizes regional American stereotypes: crude yet resourceful, outspoken in patriotism, and stubbornly independent. The expedition promises tropical adventure and discovery within the conventions of nineteenth-century exploration fiction.