The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence SterneProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.5
Word count
1M words
Chapters
103

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Family BondsComplex HumanityStream-of-consciousness PioneerMelancholy ToneGrowing UpDaily ReflectionsExperimental NarrativeHumor ReliefAbsurdist StyleBritish Literature

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.The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence SterneAuthor: Sterne, Laurence, 1713-1768,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 1, 1997

Editor's review

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is one of the most experimental works in eighteenth-century English literature. Taking the narrator's life and opinions as its thread, it constantly digresses, scrambles chronology, and plays with typography and punctuation, turning "writing a novel" itself into an object of mockery. Its value lies not in telling a complete story but in showing, through humour, sentiment, and self-dismantling, how free narrative can be. The many digressions and asides are both an obstacle and a pleasure: in the seemingly scattered text, readers encounter shrewd observations on human nature, family, war, and feeling. The Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English text, suitable as a base for reading the original or for comparative study. It suits readers willing to slow down and savour stylistic play rather than those seeking plot momentum. Read as an "anti-novel," it reveals Sterne's gentle parody of literary tradition.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the first chapters of Volume I first to get used to the narrator's digressive rhythm before deciding whether to read the whole.
  2. Keep a brief character chart to record family members and events as they are mentioned.
  3. Do not skip typographical and punctuation oddities; use annotations to understand their parodic intent.
  4. Read alongside background material on the eighteenth-century English novel to lower the barrier to understanding.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95
  96. 96
  97. 97
  98. 98
  99. 99
  100. 100
  101. 101
  102. 102
  103. 103

FAQ

Why does this book have almost no coherent plot? Tristram Shandy deliberately breaks with traditional narrative: the narrator constantly digresses, doubles back, and inserts asides, making the act of writing itself the content. Plot is intentionally postponed and fragmented; readers must accept this anti-novel structure to appreciate its humour and experimentation.
Can I read this edition with only a basic command of English? The Project Gutenberg edition is the original English text, full of eighteenth-century expressions and typographical experiments. Readers with only basic English will find it hard going; it is best to have solid English reading ability or to use it alongside annotated editions and introductory guides.
Is it suitable as a course text? It works well as a supplementary text in courses on the history of the novel or narratology, especially for discussing the unreliable narrator, metafiction, and stylistic experiment. Because of its unusual structure, it usually needs an instructor's background explanation and reading guidance, and is not ideal as the sole introductory text.

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About the author

Laurence Sterne Author · Anglo-Irish · 1713–1768

Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and a clergyman of the Church of England. Born in Clonmel, Ireland, he graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge. He rose to fame with the experimental comic novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–1767, in nine volumes), which broke with conventional narrative order and is known for its digressions, playful interruptions, and typographic games, leaving a lasting influence on later fiction. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, published posthumously, uses travel as its thread, with a prose that is both sentimental and ironic, and is regarded as a representative work of sentimental literature. A Political Romance is also included in the library. Public information is limited, and many details of his life remain uncertain, yet his subjects and style already reveal his distinctive place in the transformation of the eighteenth-century English novel.