Laurence Sterne 
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.


 


Tristram opens his account of his life and opinions with a sense that it was all over before it was even begun: ‘I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.’ And thus Sterne begins his exploration of the difficulties of creativity – both sexual and literary. In doing so, he pushes the conventions of the early novel to extreme limits.

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Prior to embarking on
Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) had shown little sign of becoming a major author. After being educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, he entered the church. Hoping to advance in the Church of England, Sterne pursued the modest vocation of a country parson for many years. Ironically, when he abandoned thoughts of promotion and turned to writing fiction, he was rewarded with the living of Coxwold, Yorkshire; he promptly dubbed the parsonage ‘Shandy Hall’ after the fictional setting of his novel. When he died in lodgings in London in 1768, he left readers with the difficulty of deciding whether
Tristram Shandy was completed or just terminated by the death of the author.