The Novelty of Laurence Sterne

This chapter focuses on the novelty of Laurence Sterne. Sterne's early writings consisted mainly of sermons. He won both immediate celebrity and lasting literary fame, however, with two works that he produced in the final decade of his life: Tristram Shandy, serialized in nine volumes from 1759 to 1767, and the unfinished sequel, A Sentimental Journey, published just three weeks before his death in 1768. These two books earned Sterne high praise even from tough critics. The novelty and originality of Sterne's work was widely acknowledged in an age caught up in praise for the novel and original. Tristram Shandy’s style, mode, characters, and trope became regular features of the literary landscape in Britain, Ireland, America, and even the Continent. Meanwhile, the unfinished sequel effectively created a new subgenre in fiction. Through the Modernist period, indeed, Sterne's work was recognized as a literary-historical touchstone and a provocation to innovate.