Sterne, Laurence

Sterne, Laurence (1713–68), educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he embraced the philosophy of Locke and made a lifelong friend of Hall-Stevenson, who was probably the model for Eugenius. He took holy orders and obtained the living of the Yorkshire parish of Sutton-on-the-Forest in 1738. In 1741 he married Elizabeth Lumley. In 1759 he began Tristram Shandy, Vols I and II being published in that year. This work brought him fame and success, although Dr Johnson, Richardson, Goldsmith, and others criticized it on both literary and moral grounds. He went to London and he was feated by society, had his portrait painted by Reynolds, and was invited to Court. He published The Sermons of Mr Yorick (1760), a volume whose title caused some scandal, and in 1761 four more volumes of Tristram Shandy appeared. Meanwhile Sterne's health was deteriorating steadily. In 1762 in the hope of improvement he and his wife and daughter left for France. Sterne returned alone to England in 1764, and in 1765 published Vols VII and VIII of Tristram Shandy; Vol IX appeared in 1767. In 1765 he returned to France and undertook an eight-month tour of France and Italy, which clearly provided him with much of the material for A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768). In 1766 he published two further volumes of sermons. In 1767 Sterne met and fell in love with Elizabeth Draper, and began his Journal to Eliza. He died of tuberculosis in London in March 1768.

A spate of forgeries appeared after Sterne's death, including another volume of Tristram Shandy, Posthumous Works, and a continuation by ‘Eugenius’ (an author whose identity is not known, but who was not Hall-Stevenson) of A Sentimental Journey.

Sterne is generally acknowledged as an innovator of the highest originality, and has been seen as the chief begetter of a long line of writers interested in the ‘stream-of-consciousness’. He acknowledges in Tristram Shandy his own debt in this respect to Locke. Throughout his work he parodies the developing conventions of the still-new ‘novel’, and its problems in presenting reality, space, and time. His sharp but often salacious wit is balanced by the affection he displays towards the delights and absurdities of life.