Laurence Sterne Books In Order

Novels

  1. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759)
  2. A Political Romance (1759)
  3. A Sentimental Journey (1768)

Omnibus

  1. The Complete Works and Life of Laurence Sterne (1991)
  2. A Sentimental Journey / Continuation of the Bramine’s Journal (2002)

Collections

  1. The Sermons of Mr. Yorick (1973)
  2. A Sentimental Journey and Other Writings (2003)

Non fiction

  1. Letters (1966)
  2. The Sermons of Laurence Sterne (1996)

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Laurence Sterne Books Overview

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

This new edition of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is the first book published by Visual Editions: a new London based book publisher of literary fiction and non fiction who make use of what they call ‘visual writing.’ They believe books should be as visually compelling as the stories they tell, and their strapline is ‘great looking stories.’ Their aim to publish The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman as their first title is to show where the idea of ‘visual writing’ originated, to show where it all began. The idea is to bring out the book’s brilliance and playfulness again, to dust it down from its shoddy Dover Classics image and make it accessible and relevant again to a more contemporary audience. Visual Editions asked the designers to breathe new life into the book and told the designers to add new visual elements in as well. As long as they stayed faithful to Sterne’s spirit, then VE were happy to let the designers roam. And so they did: a shut door is a folded page, perspiration is pages of dotted spot varnish and the marbled page is a moir of a black and white photograph a nod to contemporary printing technologies, in the way that the marbled page was a result of technologies of the time. British author Will Self introduces the book, with the typically wonderful irreverence that Sterne himself would have loved.

A Political Romance

Trim was one of those kind of Men who loved a Bit of Finery in his Heart, and would rather have a tatter’d Rag of a Better Body’s, than the best plain whole Thing his Wife could spin him.

A Sentimental Journey

The crimson window curtains…
were drawn close; the sun was setting, and reflected through them so warm a tint into the fair fille de chambre’s face, I thought she blush’d the idea of it made me blush myself. We were quite alone; and that super induced a second blush before the first could get off. from ‘The Temptation’ Laurence Sterne’s revolutionary novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman 1760 1767 plays with time, space, narrative conceits, and the very concept of the novel itself it has dramatically affected the course of English language fiction in the centuries since, with works from writers such as James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon showing his influence. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy 1768 is the thematic sequel, a tale of a minor character from Shandy that is its own frolic of experimental fiction. Though less well known than its celebrated predecessor, this is an equally startling and frantically imaginative work from a writer some consider a comic genius. This edition also features the collection The Journal to Eliza, Sterne’s impishly coy diary of a separation from his mistress, as well as numerous letters Sterne wrote to a variety of correspondents, including his wife. Irish clergyman LAURENCE STERNE 1713 1768 also wrote the satire A Political Romance 1759 and published volumes of his sermons.

A Sentimental Journey / Continuation of the Bramine’s Journal

The sixth volume of the Florida Edition of the Works of Laurence Sterne contains scholarly editions of two works of Sterne’s last year of life, A Sentimental Journey and the Bramine’s Journal Journal to Eliza. As with the first five volumes of the series Tristram Shandy, the Sermons, and their annotations, the texts are presented as clean texts, with all textual and scholarly apparatus gathered at the end of the volume, including collations with existing manuscripts, a historical collation of the first three editions of Journey, and a comprehensive listing of all emendations made to the texts. While relying on the scholarly edition of Journey by Gardner Stout 1967, this new edition has in many ways, both textual and annotative, altered his earlier work; and it presents as well the first truly scholarly edition of the Journal since Lewis Perry Curtis’s edition in Letters 1935. This book continues the tradition of the Florida Edition, providing an abundance of materials that are intended to elucidate but not interpret Sterne’s writings. New and Day build on Stout’s fine annotations, but they add the commentaries of the intervening 35 years, along with some new recoveries and discoveries, and some corrections to Stout’s edition. The annotations to the Journal go well beyond Curtis’s commentary, especially in drawing a strong relationship between the Journey and the Journal. As the editors argue in the extensive introduction, the two texts must be read together in order to be understood properly. Sterne’s writings in his last year belong together as the complex representation of his hopes and fears, his loves and his longings, as he prepared to face death and judgment. The dual presentation in this volume will not only enhance the reputation of the Bramin’s Journal, but will bring to light aspects of A Sentimental Journey previously unnoted. Melvyn New is professor of English at the University of Florida and general editor of the Florida Edition of the Works of Laurence Sterne, five volumes of which have been published.

A Sentimental Journey and Other Writings

‘Love is nothing without feeling. And feeling is still less without love.’Celebrated in its own day as the progenitor of ‘a school of sentimental writers’, A Sentimental Journey 1768 has outlasted its many imitators because of the humour and mischievous eroticism that inform Mr Yorick’s travels. Setting out to journey to France and Italy he gets little further than Lyons but finds much to appreciate, in contrast to contemporary travel writers whom Sterne satirizes in the figures of Smelfungus and Mundungus. A master of ambiguity and double entendre, Sterne is nevertheless as concerned as his peers with exploring the nature of virtue; unlike other writers of sentimental fiction Sterne insists on the inseparability of desire and feeling. This new edition includes a selection from The Sermons of Mr Yorick, which shed light on the concerns of the Journey, The Journal to Eliza, which records Sterne’s feelings as he languishes for the company of Eliza Draper, and A Political Romance, the satire on a local ecclesiastical squabble that was the catalyst for Sterne’s literary career. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up to date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Sermons of Laurence Sterne

‘Every serious student of 18th century religious thought will need to come to terms with this edition of Sterne’s sermons…
. The annotation alone will force scholars to explore again the notion that 18th century Anglicanism, and Sterne’s Anglicanism in particular, was devoid of conviction…
. One of the special strengths of this edition is the editor’s decision to provide ample quoted material from authors who influenced Sterne’s work in these sermons…
. Extremely erudite and sensitive.’ William Spellman, University of North Carolina, Asheville This two volume scholarly edition of Laurence Sterne’s 45 sermons is the first complete reprinting of the text of the sermons since the Shakespeare Head edition in 1927 and the first annotated edition ever. The introduction and notes demonstrate Sterne’s method of composing sermons and indicate, wherever possible, the relationship between the sermons and Sterne’s fiction and other writing. In addition, the annotation provides numerous connections between the sermons and Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey. Melvyn New’s long and illuminating introduction outlines the main elements of late 17th and early 18th century Anglicanism and explores how this theological perspective informed Sterne’s message in the pulpit. The work includes four categories of annotations: Sterne’s sources, his theology, his other writings, and his clerical and private life. As with the Florida edition of Tristram Shandy, this will be the edition that scholars will need to consult. Ecclesiastical and intellectual historians, as well as library scholars interested in the eighteenth century, will find this work of great usefulness.

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