London: J.E. Nicholls, [1839?]

Tristram Shandy begs his readers to ‘let me go on, and tell the story in my own way’. Readers of both Tristram Shandy and A sentimental journey similarly adopt this individualistic approach both to understanding Sterne’s books and to adapting them in new ways. As Jacque and Fussell’s 1839 illustration of Yorick’s ‘Preface in the Desobligeant’ shows – which itself appears part-way through A sentimental journey – Sterne invites his readers to design their own path through his texts and into their own imaginative responses to them.

Oates.565, p.13