ABSTRACT
George Smith Green (d. 1762) was an Oxford watchmaker who had written several works of original fiction as well as literary criticism. This two-volume biography charted the journeys of a clergyman’s son from Hampshire who embarked on a life of rakery that ended in poverty. Green purported to be his “friend and acquaintance”, using the story as a morality tale. Van escaped from his apprenticeship to a cheesemonger and entered the cavalry, then married an heiress and squandered her fortune. The excerpt found the errant apprentice John Van tied up in his master’s garret, when Amy, the chambermaid, rescued him. It reflected the popular notion that men would enlist as a way of extricating themselves from marriage. Its presence in fiction throughout the period led historians like Keith Snell to assume that joining the army “was the institutionally acceptable form of family desertion”, though this is not borne out by the records. 6
