STERNE, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. IN SUPERB 18th CENTURY DUBLIN BINDING

Two volumes. A New Edition. London: Printed for W. Strahan ... and T. Evans in the Strand, 1780. 12mo. Fine contemporary sprinkled calf, raised bands flanked by double gilt rules, title in gilt on contrasting red and green morocco labels. Engraved frontispiece in each volume, volume II with one engraved heraldic device in the text. Bookplate of ‘L. Thibeaud, Avocat’ on front pastedowns; previous owner’s signature on both title pages. Corners slightly bumped, isolated trivial printer’s smudges or small spots, a few faint inoffensive damp-stains, but still a very fine copy, the bindings nearly lustrous enough to see one’s reflection, and the text remarkably fresh, bright, and clean.
Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), novelist, was born in Clonmel, the son of an impoverished army ensign. After a failed marriage and his wife’s committal to a private asylum in 1758, Sterne took to literary work in earnest. His Tristram Shandy made him famous almost overnight.
This is an exceptionally fine contemporary copy of a major work in the Sterne canon, first published in 1768 and still satisfying to read. In 1762, Sterne’s poor health forced him to leave England for France and Italy, and those travels resulted in this account, which is full of his sentimental experiences during a journey to Calais, Rouen, Paris, the Bourbonnais, and (nearly to) Lyons. Despite the title and the intentions of the author, only France is covered here; Sterne’s illness prevented his continuation to Italy. Upon his return to London in 1766, Sterne had the gratifying experience of being treated like a literary lion, and he was greeted in the same way when he later revisited Paris. This copy’s French ex-libris clearly indicates the work’s contemporary popularity there. Unlike the glum and hostile travel narratives of Smollett and Samuel Sharp (the latter of whom travelled across Europe “without one generous connection or pleasurable anecdote to tell of”), these vivid vignettes written by a dying man find pleasure at every turn. What seems to be a repair of the rear joint of the second volume here is baffling: there does seem to be a difference in the leather between the spine and the back cover, but if this does, in fact, reflect work done, it seems almost too good to be modern; perhaps it was accomplished after some accident or misstep when the book was originally being bound. The novel can be seen as an epilogue to the possibly unfinished work The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and also as an answer to Tobias Smollett’s decidedly unsentimental Travels through France and Italy. Sterne had met Smollett during his travels in Europe, and strongly objected to his spleen, acerbity and quarrelsomeness. He modelled the character of Smelfungus on him. The novel was extremely popular and influential and helped establish travel writing as the dominant genre of the second half of the 18th century. According to Drabble; “[Sterne] is generally acknowledged as an innovator of the highest originality, and has been seen as the chief begetter of a long line of writers interested in the stream-of-consciousness ...”.

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