New, Melvyn, Laurence Sterne as Satirist: A Reading of ‘Tristram Shandy’ (University of Florida Press, 1969).
——, ‘Sterne, Warburton, and the Burden of Exuberant Wit’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 15 (1982), 245–74.
——, ‘Sterne and the Narrative of Determinateness’, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 4 (1992), 315–29.
——, ‘Swift and Sterne: Two Tales, Several Sermons, and a Relationship Revisited’, in Critical Essays on Jonathan Swift, ed. Frank Palmeri (G. K. Hall, 1993), 164–86.
——, ‘Tristram Shandy’: A Book for Free Spirits (Twayne/Macmillan, 1994).
*Ostovich, Helen, ‘Reader as Hobby-Horse in Tristram Shandy’, Philological Quarterly 68 (1989), 325–42.
Parnell, J. T., ‘Swift, Sterne, and the Skeptical Tradition’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 23 (1994), 221–42.
Pierce, David and Peter de Voogd, eds., Laurence Sterne in Modernism and Postmodernism (Rodopi, 1996).
Rosenblum, Michael, ‘Why What Happens in Shandy Hall Is Not “A Matter for the Police”’, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 7 (1995), 147–64.
Schulze, Fritz W., ‘In the Margin of the Florida Edition of Sterne’, in Wege Amerikanischer Kultur, ed. Renate von Bardeleben (Peter Lang, 1989), 47–68.
Smyth, John Vignaux, ‘Sterne’, in A Question of Eros: Irony in Sterne, Kierkegaard, and Barthes (University of Florida Press, 1986).
Soud, Stephen, ‘“Weavers, gardeners, and gladiators”: Labyrinths in Tristram Shandy’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 28 (1995), 397–411.
Thomas, Calvin, ‘Tristram Shandy’s Consent to Incompleteness: Discourse, Disavowal, Disruption’, Literature & Psychology 36 (1990), 44–62.
Traugott, John, Tristram Shandy’s World: Sterne’s Philosophical Rhetoric (University of California Press, 1954).
*Wehrs, Donald R., ‘Sterne, Cervantes, Montaigne: Fideistic Skepticism and the Rhetoric of Desire’, Comparative Literature Studies 25 (1988), 127–51.
*Zimmerman, Everett, ‘Tristram Shandy and Narrative Representation’, Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 28 (1987), 127–47.
A Note on the Text
The text herein is based on the Florida Edition of The Works of Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy: The Text, ed. Melvyn New and Joan New, 2 vols. (University Press of Florida, 1978).
Tristram Shandy was first published serially between 1759 and 1767 as follows:
December 1759 Vols. I and II – in York by Ann Ward
January 1761 Vols. III and IV – in London by Dodsley
January 1762 Vols. V and VI – in London by Becket and DeHondt
January 1765 Vols. VII and VIII – in London by Becket and DeHondt
January 1767 Vol. IX – in London by Becket and DeHondt
After the first instalment took London by storm, Dodsley published a second edition in April 1760; before Sterne’s death in March 1768, four additional editions were required. Volumes III–VIII also had a second edition during Sterne’s lifetime. For the Florida Text, multiple copies of these lifetime editions were carefully collated and the results recorded in two appendices, a ‘List of Emendations’ and an ‘Historical Collation’. Sterne had a slight hand in the second editions of Volumes I, II and III; and he seems to have added two sentences to the second edition of Volume V (see n. 11 to V.xlii); in no other editions is his hand evident. Because of this minimal activity, and the absence of manuscripts, it was clear that the first edition of all nine volumes was the best choice for the copy-text for the Florida Edition.
The Florida Text is not a facsimile edition, but it does demonstrate considerable editorial reserve in emending the copy-text. After studying the surviving manuscripts of A Sentimental Journey and A Journal to Eliza, the editors decided that normalizing Sterne’s erratic spellings, grammar and punctuation would, in too many instances, possibly confuse his intentions. Did he, for example, alter ‘Rugians’ (the name of a Germanic tribe correctly spelled in his source) to ‘Bugians’ to create a bawdy play (see n. 1 to VI.xvii), or did the compositor, unfamiliar with ‘Rugians’, make a simple error? Is Sterne showing his poor command of French when he writes ‘a le pere’, as many correcting editors seem to believe; or is he making a deliberate error, designed to echo ‘à la mere’ (see nn. 4 and 5 to I.xx)? Conjectures multiply around many such puzzlements in Tristram Shandy, and an editor’s choice among them will rarely satisfy all readers. Still, almost twenty years after publishing the Florida Text, I found only two changes I definitely wanted to make for the Penguin text: ‘Lacerna’ emends Florida’s ‘Lacema’ (see n. 4 to VI.xix), because it now seems to me that I preserved a likely compositorial error for a Latin word probably familiar to Sterne, since it was taught to schoolboys; and ‘wistfully’ emends ‘wishfully’ (p. 385) on the basis of a recovered portion of manuscript, as explained below.
In most instances, substantive emendations to the copy-text have been made only in self-evident instances, the correction of obvious inadvertencies in the printed text. Some few emendations, however, do require explanation (as do some failures to emend), and I have explained these decisions in the notes. Conjectural alternative readings are indicated in the notes by an italic question mark.
During the preparation of the Florida Text no manuscript of Tristram could be found. In 1990, however, the lost fair copy of the Le Fever episode that Sterne gave to his patron, Lady Spencer, resurfaced in the British Library (see my essay in Scriblerian 23 (1991)). A collation of that manuscript with the printed version showed many differences in the accidentals, and several substantive differences as well, one of which, ‘wistfully’ for ‘wishfully’, has been accepted into this edition (see p. 385). Reading the manuscript proved a humbling experience; as I wrote in 1990,
the difficulty of establishing a ‘true’ text may be beautifully brought home by observing the slight difference between ‘wishfully’ and ‘wistfully’… and then acknowledging that extrapolation would argue over one hundred such buried and irrecoverable ‘misreadings’ in the printed text – one every seven or eight pages of the Florida edition. The Le Fever manuscript might well bring a tear to the eye.
To be sure, one takes some consolation in remembering, as Professor Ricks notes in his introduction, that Sterne had a highly developed sense of the ‘bookishness’ of his enterprise, the fact that a work ‘in print’ develops a character of its own. It is one’s offspring, to use a favourite Shandean metaphor, and even when we can place ourselves at the precise scene of conception, delivery is turned over to a plethora of competing egos and instruments. It is – Dr Slop might opine – a wonder that any book gets born; and yet – Toby might reply – what prodigious libraries we have!
In the Florida Text, Greek words were photographically reproduced from the first edition in order to emphasize that for Sterne the appearance of Greek in the middle of his text (or in a footnote) had a visual significance that ought not to be ignored; the same practice is used for this edition. Sterne’s often incorrect accenting has been preserved; such details can help mark the extent of his command of Greek and, as well, help identify his sources. Sterne’s other foreign language borrowings are discussed at length in Appendices 6 and 8 of the Florida Text. Generally speaking, where it was felt (for example, in the Sorbonne Memoire) that Sterne would have used a photocopy had the technology been available, the copy-text was emended to conform to his source; otherwise, his errors, particularly in accenting, have usually been allowed to stand.
Sterne’s varied dash-lengths have been preserved, including the use of two to five hyphens rather than the usual em and two-em dashes, a usage particularly evident in the York-printed volumes, when Sterne may have overseen the printing with some care. Other vagaries of punctuation have also been preserved. Silent changes to the copy-text include (1) consistently setting in italics the opening and closing parentheses around an italic word, as well as colons, question marks and exclamation points after italic words; (2) consistently setting in roman the possessive ‘s’ after a
n italicized name (these changes follow the usual practice of the copy-text); (3) modernizing the long ‘s’ of the copy-text; (4) silently omitting running quotation marks in the left margin.
Beginning in Volume VII, Sterne’s compositors abandoned the uniform italicizing of proper names, and I have followed suit; while it may take readers a few pages to adjust to the difference, the pause serves to remind us that Sterne published Tristram with three different houses over an eight-year period.
Finally, it should be noted that Tristram Shandy in any one-volume edition is not the work Sterne’s contemporaries knew. They received it in small octavo volumes, measuring perhaps 3.5 by 7 inches, usually fewer than 200 pages, each page containing some 200 words. It was, in short, a pleasant little book well suited to the large pockets of eighteenth-century dress, and to a rapid and joyful reading, perhaps with one’s elbow propped on the mantelpiece, and a year’s wait (at least) for the sequel. We read Tristram Shandy in a much different format today, but one must not blame Sterne for that.
THE
LIFE
AND
OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY,
GENTLEMAN.
Tαρασσει τ8`ς ’AνGρώπ8ς 8’ τά Πρχ´γμαlα,
αλλα τά περι τώγ Πραγμάlων, Δoγμαlα.
VOL. I.
1760.
(Height of original type-page 123 mm.)
To the Right Honourable Mr. PITT.1
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 corner2 of the kingdom, and in a retired thatch’d house, where I live in a constant endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health,3 and other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles,—but much more so, when he laughs, that 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 ever 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.
THE
LIFE and OPINIONS
OF
TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gent.
CHAP. I.
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;1 had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concern’d in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature2 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 humours3 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.—Believe me, good folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it;—you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits,4 as how they are transfused from father to son, &c. &c.—and a great deal to that purpose:—Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into; so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, ’tis not a halfpenny matter,--away they go cluttering like hey-go-mad; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it.
Pray, my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?——Good G—! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time,—— Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying?——Nothing.
CHAP. II.
——Then, positively, there is nothing in the question, that I can see, either good or bad.——Then let me tell you, Sir, it was a very unseasonable question at least,—because it scattered and dispersed the animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand-in-hand with the HOMUNCULUS, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception.1
The HOMUNCULUS, Sir, in how-ever low and ludicrous a light he may appear, in this age of levity, to the eye of folly or prejudice;—to the eye of reason in scientifick research, he stands confess’d—a Being guarded and circumscribed with rights:——The minutest philosophers,2 who, by the bye, have the most enlarged understandings, (their souls being inversely as their enquiries) shew us incontestably, That the HOMUNCULUS is created by the same hand,—engender’d in the same course of nature,—endowed with the same loco-motive powers and faculties with us:——That he consists, as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartileges, bones, marrow, brains, glands, genitals, humours, and articulations;3 ——is a Being of as much activity,——and, in all senses of the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor4 of England.—He may be benefited, he may be injured,—he may obtain redress;—in a word, he has all the claims and rights of humanity, which Tully, Puffendorff,5 or the best ethick writers allow to arise out of that state and relation.
Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way alone?——or that, thro’ terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my little gentleman had got to his journey’s end miserably spent;——his muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread;—his own animal spirits ruffled beyond description,—and that in this sad disorder’d state of nerves, he had laid down a prey to sudden starts, or a series of melancholy dreams and fancies for nine long, long months together.——I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a thousand weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly to rights.
CHAP. III.
TO my uncle Mr. Toby Shandy do I stand indebted for the preceding anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural philosopher, and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest matters, had oft, and heavily, complain’d of the injury; but once more particularly, as my uncle Toby well remember’d, upon his observing a most unaccountable obliquity, (as he call’d it) in my manner of setting up my top, and justifying the principles upon which I had done it,—the old gentleman shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than reproach,—he said his heart all along foreboded, and he saw it verified in this, and from a thousand other observations he had made upon me, That I should neither think nor act like any other man’s child:—— But alas! continued he, shaking his head a second time, and wiping away a tear which was trickling down his cheeks, My Tristram’s misfortunes began nine months before ever he came into the world.
——My mother, who was sitting by, look’d up,—but she knew no more than her backside what my father meant,--but my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, who had been often informed of the affair,—understood him very well.
CHAP. IV.
I Know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all,—who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you.
It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living,
that I have been so very particular already. As my life and opinions are likely to make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever,—be no less read than the Pilgrim’s Progress 1 itself---and, in the end, prove the very thing which Montaigne 2 dreaded his essays should turn out, that is, a book for a parlour-window;—I find it necessary to consult every one a little in his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going on a little further in the same way: For which cause, right glad I am, that I have begun the history of myself in the way I have done; and that I am able to go on tracing every thing in it, as Horace says, ab Ovo.3
Horace, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: But that gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy;—(I forget which)—besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr.Horace’s pardon;—for in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself neither to his rules, nor to any man’s rules that ever lived.
To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I can give no better advice, than that they skip over the remaining part of this Chapter; for I declare before hand, ’tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive.
———————Shut the door.———————
I was begot in the night, betwixt the first Sunday and the first Monday in the month of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighteen. I am positive I was.— But how I came to be so very particular in my account of a thing which happened before I was born, is owing to another small anecdote known only in our own family, but now made public4 for the better clearing up this point.