Available Formats
Paperback
Published: 1st February 2017
Hardback
Published: 12th April 2023
Paperback
Published: 15th September 2004
Paperback
Published: 2nd January 2014
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
By (Author) Laurence Sterne
Introduction by Melvyn New
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
12th April 2023
26th January 2023
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Satirical fiction and parodies
Narrative theme: Interior life
823.6
Hardback
784
Width 138mm, Height 204mm, Spine 49mm
910g
One of the greatest novels ever written, now in a wonderful new clothbound edition Laurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby and a host of other characters.
Laurence Sterne was born in 1713, the younger son of a landowning Yorkshire family. He studied at Jesus College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1738. Sterne's dramas were mostly personal, including bitter quarrels with his wife and uncle, and some high profile affairs. The publication of the first volumes of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy in 1759 made him famous throughout Europe overnight. He went on to complete the remaining volumes over the next seven years. Sterne died in 1768 of tuberculosis, the condition that had dogged him for many years.