The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Purporting to be an autobiography of the antihero Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne's novel is a comic masterpiece of digression, egoism, and sensationalism. Its hilarious asides, explanations, and a host of memorable secondary characters – such as Uncle Toby, Dr. Slop, Parson Yorick, and Widow Wadman – take center stage, at the expense of the actual life events the book sets out to depict. A humorous compendium of European thought and literature, pastiching the likes of Locke and Bacon and referencing Pope, Swift, Cervantes, and Rabelais, emerges amid the convoluted accounts of Tristram's conception, misnaming, and accidental circumcision by a sash window, in a shrewd narrative that examines the role and nature of language itself. This very ambitious editorial project took our team more than a year to bring to perfection. The fresh editorial and typographical approach is of the highest standard and makes this timeless classic come alive. It has been newly annotated with a thorough but accessible approach and is offered at a very reasonable price.