STERNE, LAURENCE

born Nov. 24, 1713, Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ire. died March 18, 1768, London, Eng. Sterne, detail of an oil painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1760; in the National Portrait Gallery, Irish-born English novelist and humorist, author of Tristram Shandy (175967), an early novel in which story is subordinate to the free associations and digressions of its narrator. He is also known for the novel A Sentimental Journey (1768). Additional reading Arthur H. Cash, Laurence Sterne: The Early & Middle Years (1975, reissued 1992), and Laurence Sterne: The Later Years (1986, reissued 1992), are the definitive studies of his life. Critical studies include D.W. Jefferson, Laurence Sterne (1954, reissued 1968), a very brief treatment; John Traugott, Tristram Shandy's World: Sterne's Philosophical Rhetoric (1954); John M. Stedmond, The Comic Art of Laurence Sterne (1967); Melvyn New, Laurence Sterne as Satirist: A Reading of Tristram Shandy (1969); William V. Holtz, Image and Immortality: A Study of Tristram Shandy (1970); and Max Byrd, Tristram Shandy (1985).