Sterne

Traill, H. D. (Henry Duff), 1842-1900Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 315K words
Chapters: 32

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Sterne by H. D. TraillAuthor: Traill, H. D. (Henry Duff), 1842-1900,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

This is H. D. Traill's critical biography of the English writer Laurence Sterne, a free public-domain e-book from Project Gutenberg. Written in English and relatively short, it does not retell the plots of Tristram Shandy or A Sentimental Journey; instead it places Sterne in the context of eighteenth-century English literature and church life and discusses the origins and controversies of his humor, sentimental tone, and narrative experiments. Traill was a Victorian critic and biographer, and his prose carries the judgmental tone of that era, which gives today's readers a historical perspective on how Sterne was understood by later generations. It works well as supplementary reading for courses in English literary history, and also suits general readers who want background on Sterne and his works, reading it in installments on the commute or before bed; note that it is not a modern scholarly monograph, so contemporary research should be checked before citing it.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English literature students who need background on eighteenth-century novelists
General readers interested in Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey
Researchers who want to know how Victorian literary figures evaluated Sterne
Readers accustomed to English public-domain e-books who prefer short critical biographies

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking cutting-edge contemporary scholarship or detailed textual analysis
Readers with limited English proficiency who need a Chinese translation
Readers who only want to read Sterne's own works and are not interested in his life or criticism

Reading tips

Read representative chapters of Sterne's own works first, then return to the critical biography; the comparison is more rewarding.
Break the book into chapters, reading one at a time and noting Traill's period biases.
Read it alongside a relevant chapter of a modern history of English literature to correct the book's outdated judgments.
When you encounter quotations, you can skip them first and check the original sources after finishing the main discussion.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book one of Sterne's original novels?

No. It is a critical biography of Sterne written by H. D. Traill, discussing his life, the style of his works, and his literary standing; it is not the text of Tristram Shandy or A Sentimental Journey. To read the originals, you need to find Sterne's own works.

What level of English is needed to read this book?

The book is entirely in English, with a nineteenth-century critical prose style; the vocabulary is not obscure, but the sentences are long. It suits readers with university-level English reading ability who can handle long sentences with a dictionary; beginners might start with introductions in Chinese translation.

Are the views in this critical biography still reliable today?

Traill was a Victorian critic, and the judgments in the book reflect the aesthetic and moral positions of that era; his assessment of Sterne may differ from contemporary scholarship. It can be read as material on reception history, but modern scholarly works should be checked before citing specific views.

Where can I get this e-book?

The book is published by Project Gutenberg as a free public-domain e-book; you can search for it by title or author on their website and download it, typically in plain text and ePub formats, with the exact available formats depending on the website page.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Traill, H. D. (Henry Duff), 1842-1900 Author

Henry Duff Traill (1842–1900) was a nineteenth-century English writer and editor whose biographical details remain limited in publicly available sources. Four of his works are held here, showing that his writing covered both historical biography and literary criticism. On the historical side is William the Third, which centres on the political and religious upheavals surrounding the Glorious Revolution. On the literary side are his volumes on Coleridge and Sterne in the English Men of Letters series, which combine life narrative with analysis of the works in the manner of that series. The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins turns to travel and regional culture, linking the historical memories of the Mediterranean coast through its cities and ruins. Traill wrote for general readers in a clear, well-ordered style typical of Victorian biography and criticism, with attention to factual narrative and character portrayal, and he had some influence in popularising English literary and historical knowledge.