Laurence Sterne

Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric (1713–1768)

Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric. He wrote the novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. He also published many sermons and memoirs. Many people in his family were in the military. Because of this, he traveled in Ireland and England. One of his uncles paid for Sterne to go to the Hipperholme Grammar School in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He went to Jesus College, Cambridge on a sizarship. In that college, he got bachelor's and master's degrees. In 1741, he married Elizabeth Lumley.


Laurence Sterne
Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1760
Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1760
Born(1713-11-24)24 November 1713
Clonmel, Ireland
Died18 March 1768(1768-03-18) (aged 54)
London, England
OccupationNovelist, clergyman
NationalityBritish
Alma materJesus College, Cambridge
Notable worksThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
A Political Romance
SpouseElizabeth Lumley

His satire A Political Romance made the church angry. The book was burnt. Sterne had tuberculosis, so he moved to France. He wrote about his travels to France in A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. This book was published a few weeks before he died. He also wrote Journal to Eliza, which was about his romantic feelings for Eliza Draper. This was published after he died. Sterne died in 1768 and was buried at St George's, Hanover Square. His body was stolen and sold to anatomists at Cambridge University. His body was then found and brought back.

  • 1743 – The Unknown World: Verses Occasioned by Hearing a Pass-Bell (disputed, possibly written by Hubert Stogdon)[1]
  • 1747 – The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zerephath
  • 1750 – The Abuses of Conscience
  • 1759 – A Political Romance
  • 1759 – Tristram Shandy vols. 1 and 2
  • 1760 – The Sermons of Mr. Yorick vol. 1 and 2
  • 1761 – Tristram Shandy vols. 3–6
  • 1765 – Tristram Shandy vols. 7 and 8
  • 1766 – The Sermons of Mr. Yorick vols. 3 and 4
  • 1767 – Tristram Shandy vol. 9
  • 1768 – A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
  • 1769 – Sermons by the Late Rev. Mr. Sterne vols. 5–7 (a continuation of The Sermons of Mr. Yorick)[2]

Citations

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  1. New, Melvyn (2011). "'The Unknown World': The Poem Laurence Sterne Did Not Write". Huntington Library Quarterly. 74 (1): 85–98. doi:10.1525/hlq.2011.74.1.85. JSTOR 10.1525/hlq.2011.74.1.85.
  2. Sterne, Laurence (1851). Works of Laurence Sterne. Bohn.

References

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Further reading

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  • René Bosch, Labyrinth of Digressions: Tristram Shandy as Perceived and Influenced by Sterne's Early Imitators (Amsterdam, 2007)
  • W. M. Thackeray, in English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1853; new edition, New York, 1911)
  • Percy Fitzgerald, Life of Laurence Sterne (London, 1864; second edition, London, 1896)
  • Paul Stapfer, Laurence Sterne, sa personne et ses ouvrages (second edition, Paris, 1882)
  • H. D. Traill, Laurence Sterne, "English Men of Letters", (London, 1882)
  • H. D. Traill. "Sterne". Harper & Brothers Publishers. Retrieved 22 March 2018 – via Internet Archive.
  • Texte, Rousseau et le cosmopolitisme littôraire au XVIIIème siècle (Paris, 1895)
  • H. W. Thayer, Laurence Sterne in Germany (New York, 1905)
  • P. E. More, Shelburne Essays (third series, New York, 1905)
  • L. S. Benjamin, Life and Letters (two volumes, 1912)
  • Rousseau, George S. (2004). Nervous Acts: Essays on Literature, Culture and Sensibility. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-3454-1

Other websites

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