This edition represents substantial textual and critical research. Early editions were collated and a new text prepared. The Preface and annotations are light, as appropriate for the audience and required by the publisher, but the critical appendices demonstrate a thorough engagement with the context and critical interpretation of the novel.
This Norton Critical Edition includes:
· The first London edition (1759) of Sterne’s revolutionary and influential novel.
· Textual notes, explanatory footnotes, and a preface by Judith Hawley.
· Three illustrations.
· The Author on the Novel, fourteen judiciously chosen letters from the latest scholarly edition.
· A wide range of early responses that demonstrate Tristram Shandy’s changing reception from its publication through the nineteenth century.
· Eleven major critical interpretations, ten of them new to this edition.
· A Chronology of Laurence Sterne’s life and work and a Selected Bibliography.