London: J. Walker, 1781

The boisterously ‘Shandean’ and the touchingly ‘sentimental’ persisted in tandem throughout the decades following Sterne’s death, as numerous examples of Sterneana reveal; many readers clearly appreciated both aspects of his writings in tandem. From the 1770s onwards both of Sterne’s novels continued to inspire poems, songs, plays and lengthier prose narratives that display alternative readings of his books, and sometimes uphold them simultaneously. Some imitators combined sentimentalism with the comic, and especially with bawdry, more as a means of satirising contemporary reading tastes than of critiquing Sterne’s writing itself. Leonard MacNally published a satirical parody of sentimental travel fiction, Sentimental excursions to Windsor, and other places in 1781, at the height of popular interest in sensibility. He incorporates ‘Shandean’ games with typography the better to poke fun at the sentimental affect performed by his characters.
Oates.482, p. 168