Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy

Katherine Turner (Mary Baldwin College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.05: English Writing and Culture from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, 1689-1789.
Vol. editors: Paul Baines (University of Liverpool), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Pat Rogers (University of South Florida), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1767

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Guidebooks / Travel writing
Novel

Resources

A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy was published in February 1768. Less than a month later, its author Laurence Sterne was dead, succumbing at the age of 54 to the tuberculosis which had weakened him for years. He had completed only two of the four projected volumes of A Sentimental Journey, which has often been seen as Sterne’s wry and poignant farewell to the world. Usually classified as a novel, it is a lightly fictionalized travelogue narrated in fragmentary chapters by Parson Yorick – Sterne’s own alter ego – describing his somewhat dilatory journey through France. At one point, Yorick observes wistfully that “I think there is a fatality in it – I seldom go to the place I set out for” (131); t…

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2545 words

Citation: Turner, Katherine. "A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 May 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6994, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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