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Informationen zum Autor Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) was an Irish-born English writer and clergyman known for his novel "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman." He was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, and had a nomadic childhood due to his father's military assignments. Sterne studied at Cambridge University and became a clergyman. Sterne's literary career began with sermons and essays, but his most famous work, "Tristram Shandy," brought him recognition. The novel, published in multiple volumes, employed innovative narrative techniques, digressions, and satire to explore human nature and the limitations of language. Sterne's witty and unconventional style influenced future writers. Aside from "Tristram Shandy," Sterne wrote "A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy" and engaged in political journalism. He faced financial struggles throughout his life, but his novels brought him fame and acclaim in London and across Europe. Sterne's personal life was marked by illness, including tuberculosis, and he traveled to France seeking a cure. He developed an infatuation with Eliza Draper, but their relationship remained platonic due to her departure for India. Sterne died in 1768 at the age of 54. Laurence Sterne's works and unique narrative style continue to be celebrated as significant contributions to English literature. His novels remain influential, and his ability to blend humor, sentimentality, and philosophical musings has made him a prominent figure in the development of the novel as an art form.¿ Klappentext 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.CHAPTER 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; 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 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.-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, 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 ...
