Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) was born at Clonmel in Ireland, the son of an army officer, and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. Ordained in the Church of England, he spent some twenty years as vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest near York and held a prebend in York Minster. The first two volumes of Tristram Shandy made him famous almost overnight in 1760, and he went on to publish The Sermons of Mr. Yorick and A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. He suffered for most of his adult life from consumption and died in London in March 1768, shortly after the Sentimental Journey appeared.
Frequently Cited
“Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;——they are the life, the soul of reading!”
“The ACCUSING SPIRIT, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL, as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
Tristram Shandy promises to tell the life and opinions of its narrator, a Yorkshire gentleman, and spends most of its nine volumes failing to reach his life at all. Tristram begins with the moment of his conception in March 1718, when his mother interrupts his father at the critical instant to ask whether he has remembered to wind up the clock.
