A good collection containing Sterne's unfinished A Sentimental Journey, the "Journal to Eliza," "A Political Romance," and several selected sermons. Tim Parnell's introduction to the texts is thorough and interesting, and the explanatory notes are mostly useful. A Sentimental Journey is of course the star of the show, and its brilliant satirical take on the travel narrative (particularly as epitomized by Smollett), as well as its witty good humor, make it a most enjoyable read. The "Journal to Eliza," which I found difficult to read as non-fiction given how absolutely silly much of it sounds. The "Political Romance" is a very nice satirical-allegorical essay on a local ecclesiastical dispute, and the included sermons offer a good sense of Sterne's writing in that particular style, which differs a great deal from the fiction. As Parnell notes in the introduction though, "That Sterne's first readers happily read his sermons alongside his fiction is, however, a useful reminder of an eighteenth-century print culture in which ... readers of imaginative literature were also avid consumers of a variety of devotional texts as well as works of history, philosophy, and science."

Now, on to a biography of Sterne ... ( )

A collection of classic, humorous stories that tell of the culture and logic of the time period. A great book for introducing students to older, more dense literature. The language is more formal and may require some explanation by the teacher to clear up confusion about some key passages, but well worth the effort. Teachers would be able to use the variety of stories to cover a broad range of topics in the classroom, or simply to pair with a modern version of this genre in order to better enable students to understand how to make cross textual connections. The humor of the stories allows for students to find some level of interest without being overwhelmed with the older language.

The first writing in the book was incomplete novel (though I think it's partly autobiographical), A Sentimental Journey, which is Sterne's best known work. (I picked this up, because in the 1999 version of Mansfeild Park, Henry Crawford reads a paragraph from the book out loud to Fanny Price.) The story covers a traveler's journeys through France, in which he meets and interacts with a number of characters, including a mild-tempered monk, a French servant, a wealthy aristocrat, and numerous women of all ages and level of beauty with whom he has varying degrees of amorous feelings for. (A subsequent volume was meant to follow up with the traveler's journeys in Italy as well, but is unwritten.)

The style of writing doesn't carry over well to the modern day. It's filled with strange grammar rules and blocks of text that I had to read multiple times in order to decipher the meaning (a challenge throughout the book), and often it's hard to tell who is talking and when. It made for very slow, very dry reading, for though the book is meant to be humorous, much of the humor was lost on me.

A Sentimental Journey has it's pluses and some of the narrator's adventures are entertaining (I still love the scene with the caged bird), but it's far too challenging for recreational reading (IMO).

Next came The Journal to Eliza, which is also partly autobiographical, partly fictional. The journal is in sense a long extended letter over many weak to Eliza (the author was in love with someone named Elizabeth Draper), in which the narrator bemoans and whines about his loneliness now that his Eliza has been whisked away by her husband to India, and woe is him because he's so damn lovesick. I think it's pretty clear that this piece was not to my taste. I don't have have much patience for that sort of lovesick whinny. I just don't.

A Political Romance was my favorite writing. It involves the story of a con-man who keeps trying to claim rights to a pair of breeches and a watch-coat. I found the writing easier to read in this piece, and while, I didn't understand the politics involved, the story was rather funny regardless.

A Political Romance also includes a section in which a group of gentlemen find the slip of paper that contained the story of the breeches and the watch-coat. After reading it, they sit around a table drinking and belabor its meaning, coming up with several possible and outlandish interpretations of the story. This was also quite funny.

The final writing in the book were a selection of Sermons by Sterne. I read them through, but didn't spend much time on them, as they didn't really interest me. ( )

A Sentimental Journey is a witty and amusing read. You don't have to be familiar with the specific travel authors Sterne is satirizing as long as you're familiar with the type of authors he's targeting. There are no grand descriptions of famous places or litany of travel routes and meals; the actual traveling takes a backseat to his encounters with people. And of course Sterne's sense of humor is very evident.

Once you've finished A Sentimental Journey, do yourself a favor and skip right to the fun little fable (and its interpretations) in A Political Romance. The Journal to Eliza was never meant for publication and reads like the diary of a besotted thirteen-year-old girl. He wrote it when he was in his fifties (and almost on his deathbed) for a 23 year old woman who he'd known for three months before she had to sail back to her husband in India. It's a repetitive set of declarations of eternal love and narratives of how he took her picture with him to parties so he could pass it around and show all his friends. That he also wrote A Sentimental Journey during this time is the only evidence we have that he hadn't become as tiresome a bore as his journal indicates. ( )