A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

Sterne is one of the most original and unexpected of writers, and A Sentimental Journey differs from other travel books as greatly as Tristram Shandy differs from other novels. Sterne travelled in France during the 1760s and drew on his experiences to write the narrative of Mr Yorick, the Sentimental Traveller. Mr Yorick follows his Sensibility and finds pleasure in everything he does, in contrast to contemporary travel writers, Tobias Smollett in particular, whom Sterne satirizes in the figure of 'Smelfungus'. This volume includes The Journal to Eliza, an enigmatic work which Sterne wrote about the same time and which Ian Jack describes as a lovers' journal which began 'as magic and continued as fantasy', and A Political Romance, the rare early satire which marks the opening of the major phase of Sterne's career.