HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy,…
Loading...

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (English Library) (original 1759; edition 1974)

by Laurence Sterne, Christopher Ricks (Introduction), Graham Petrie (Editor)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
7,6331131,173 (3.91)6 / 485
Introduction and Notes by Robert Folkenflik Rich in playful double entendres, digressions, formal oddities, and typographical experiments, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman "provoked a literary sensation when it first appeared in England in a series of volumes from 1759 to 1767. An ingeniously structured novel (about writing a novel) that fascinates like a verbal game of chess, "Tristram Shandy "is the most protean and playful English novel of the eighteenth century and a celebration of the art of fiction; its inventiveness anticipates the work of Joyce, Rushdie, and Fuentes in our own century. This Modern Library Paperback is set from the nine-volume first edition from 1759.… (more)
Member:Allacci
Title:The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (English Library)
Authors:Laurence Sterne
Other authors:Christopher Ricks (Introduction), Graham Petrie (Editor)
Info:Penguin Classics (1974), Paperback, 659 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:****1/2
Tags:literatuur, Engels

Work Information

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (Author) (1759)

  1. 80
    Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Cecrow, ateolf)
    Cecrow: Spanish tale laced with humour, predates TS by 150 years.
  2. 40
    Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (Widsith)
    Widsith: The obvious companion book...funnier but less story-driven
  3. 30
    Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot (fvenez)
  4. 20
    Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (laurapickle)
    laurapickle: Midnight's Children borrows much from Sterne (as well as many other novels!), reworking it into his Booker winning novel.
  5. 31
    Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais (ateolf)
  6. 10
    Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (roby72)
  7. 10
    Ulysses by James Joyce (roby72)
  8. 00
    The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Machado de Assis (DieFledermaus)
  9. 00
    My Brother Was an Only Child by Jack Douglas (Bill-once)
    Bill-once: Sterne's work and style subtly suffuse Douglas'
  10. 00
    The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (Crypto-Willobie)
  11. 01
    The dead souls by Nikolai Gogol (uri-starkey)
  12. 01
    A Tale of A Tub by Jonathan Swift (Cecrow)
    Cecrow: Earlier influential work of satire, that also indulged in digression and lost its narrative.
AP Lit (93)
1750s (2)
My List (27)
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

English (109)  Italian (2)  Dutch (1)  French (1)  Spanish (1)  All languages (114)
Showing 1-5 of 109 (next | show all)
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/tristram-shandy-by-laurence-sterne/

I first read Tristram Shandy when I was 23, more than thirty years ago, and still have the slightly mildewed paperback that I picked up off a Cambridge bookstall one day in late 1990. I can’t honestly tell you what happens in it; I can’t find any particular lines that resonate or are very quotable; the most memorable moment is when our hero’s penis gets caught in the windowframe in Book 5 Chapter 17. (Sorry for the spoiler.)

And yet somehow I love it. It’s rambling, self-indulgent, full of references to things I know nothing about; and at the same time the stream-of-consciousness narrative, the refusal to make many concessions to the reader who wants to know what is actually going on, are part of the charm. It’s clearly an inspiration for Joyce, Woolf, and lots of the modernist writers who I really like; but it’s a book of its own time, requiring friendly engagement and repaying that engagement with warmth and humour. ( )
  nwhyte | Feb 24, 2024 |
You almost feel that you are looking at the world through the eyes of a drunk, a very merry drunk, but a drunk all the same. This novel, Don Quixote, and John Barth's The Sot-Weed factor rank among my all-time favourites. ( )
  MylesKesten | Jan 23, 2024 |
This new edition of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is the first book published by Visual Editions: a new London-based book publisher of literary fiction and non-fiction who make use of what they call "visual writing." They believe books should be as visually compelling as the stories they tell, and their strapline is "great looking stories." Their aim to publish The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman as their first title is to show where the idea of "visual writing" originated, to show where it all began. The idea is to bring out the book’s brilliance and playfulness again, to dust it down from its shoddy Dover Classics image and make it accessible and relevant again to a more contemporary audience. Visual Editions asked the designers to breathe new life into the book and told the designers to add new visual elements in as well. As long as they stayed faithful to Sterne's spirit, then VE were happy to let the designers roam. And so they did: a shut door is a folded page, perspiration is pages of dotted spot varnish and the marbled page is a moiré of a black-and-white photograph (a nod to contemporary printing technologies, in the way that the marbled page was a result of technologies of the time). British author Will Self introduces the book, with the typically wonderful irreverence that Sterne himself would have loved.
  petervanbeveren | Dec 15, 2023 |
Sometimes the archaic (even for the time) language and incredibly twisty sentences get a bit too much, but that's part of the humour. The way the book messes around with what a book *is* and the ideas of narrative structure are laugh out loud funny and made funnier by the things that also make it difficult to read sometimes. Highlights include a chapter where he plays the fiddle between events, including some incredible onomatopoeia, and a chapter which he begins by apologising for digressing constantly, describes the difficulties involved in writing as such for 2 pages, and then apologises again and starts the chapter again. ( )
  tombomp | Oct 31, 2023 |
Silliness. Stuff and nonsense.
Inspired, metatextual, unbeatable silliness. ( )
  therebelprince | Oct 24, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 109 (next | show all)

» Add other authors (152 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Sterne, LaurenceAuthorprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Austen, JohnIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Baldessari, JohnIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Barker, PeterNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Berger, D.Illustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Bode, Johann Joachim ChristophTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
BunburyCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Burnburys, Henry WilliamIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Campell, DavidChronologysecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Chodowiecki, DanielIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Chodowiecki, Daniel NikolausEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Cleland, T. M.Illustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Corinth, LovisIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Cross, Wilbur LuciusIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Davis, LindseyForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dudgeon, NeilNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Evans, BergenIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jarvis, David (frontispiece portrait of the author)Cover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Juva, KerstiTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Keating, JohnNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kis, NicholasDesignersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kleinstück, JohannesAfterwordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Laboureur, Jean-ÉmileIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lam, EmilyIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lawrence, JohnIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lesser, AntonNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Levi, CarloPrefacesecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Marías, JavierTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
McCallion, DavidNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Melchiori, GiorgioForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Meo, AntonioTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Morley, ChristopherIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
New, JoanEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
New, MelvynEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
New, Melvyn and JoanEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pacey, StevenNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Patch.ThomasCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Petrie, GrahamEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Phelps, GilbertIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Portela, ManuelTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Priestley, J.B.Introductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ricks, ChristopherIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ritter, PaulNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Robb, BrianIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Robinson, James K.Introductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ross, Ian CampbellEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Rowohlt, HarryNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Rowson, MartinIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Scarborough, AdrianNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Schmitz, SiegfriedTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Self, WillIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Troughton, DavidNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Watt, IanEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Wheelwright, RowlandIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Work, James A.Editorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
ταρασσει τους ἀνθρωπους οὐ τα πραγματα ἀλλα τα περι των πραγματων δογματα.

What stresses mankind is not things, but opinions about things --- Epictetus
Dedication
To the Right Honourable Mr. Pitt.

Sir,

Never poor Wight of a Dedicator had less hopes from his Dedication, than I have from this of mine; for it is written in a bye corner of the kingdom, and in a retir'd thatch'd house, where I live in a constant endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles,—but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this Fragment of Life.

I humbly beg, Sir, that you will honour this book, by taking it—(not under your Protection,—it must protect itself, but)—into the country with you; where, if I am ever told, it has made you smile; or can conceive it has beguiled you of one moment's pain—I shall think myself as happy as a minister of state;—perhaps much happier than any one (one only excepted) that I have read or heard of.

I am, Great Sir, (and, what is more to your Honour) I am, Good Sir, Your
Well-wisher, and most humble Fellow-subject,

The Author.
First words
"I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing; - that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind; - and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: ---Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, ---I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world from that in which the reader is likely to see me."
Quotations
and so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him, - pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?
What is best to take out the fire? ... If it is in a tender part, and a part which can conveniently be wrapt up ... Send to the next printer, and trust your cure to a soft sheet of paper just come off the press - you need do nothing more than twist it round. - The damp paper has a refreshing coolness in it - and the oil and lamp-black with which the paper is so strongly impregnated, does the business.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
This is the original work by Laurence Sterne, not the graphic novel adaptation/commentary by Martin Rowson. It should not be combined with the Norton Critical Edition, nor with single volumes of a two or three volume set.
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Introduction and Notes by Robert Folkenflik Rich in playful double entendres, digressions, formal oddities, and typographical experiments, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman "provoked a literary sensation when it first appeared in England in a series of volumes from 1759 to 1767. An ingeniously structured novel (about writing a novel) that fascinates like a verbal game of chess, "Tristram Shandy "is the most protean and playful English novel of the eighteenth century and a celebration of the art of fiction; its inventiveness anticipates the work of Joyce, Rushdie, and Fuentes in our own century. This Modern Library Paperback is set from the nine-volume first edition from 1759.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
1908 German edition available online at The Hathi Trust:
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/...
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.91)
0.5 2
1 37
1.5 2
2 69
2.5 17
3 128
3.5 30
4 260
4.5 46
5 322

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

Penguin Australia

2 editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia.

Editions: 0141439777, 0141199997

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,285,986 books! | Top bar: Always visible