Laurence Sterne

Uncommon card · No. 153568

Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric. He is best known for his comic novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–1767) and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768). Sterne grew up in a military family, travelling mainly in Ireland but briefly in England. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge, on a sizarship, gaining bachelor's and master's degrees, and was ordained as a priest in 1738. While Vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest, Yorkshire, he married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741. He briefly wrote political propaganda for the Whigs, but abandoned politics in 1742. In 1759, he wrote an ecclesiastical satire A Political Romance, which embarrassed the church and was burned. Having discovered his talent for comedy, at age 46 he dedicated himself to humour writing as a vocation. Also in 1759, he published the first volume of Tristram Shandy, which was an enormous success and continued for a total of nine volumes...

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