Ld said my mother what is all this story about A COCK and a BULL said Yorick And one of the best of its kind I ever heardOne of the greatest novels ever written now in a wonderful new clothbound edition Laurence Sternes great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first postmodern novel Part novel part digression its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate hero Tristram Shandy the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby and a host of other characters including Dr Slop Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitationsThe text and notes of this volume are based on the acclaimed Florida Edition with a critical introduction by Melvyn New and Christopher Rickss introductory essay from the first Penguin Classics editionThe book that I would never tire of Sterne was about 250 years ahead of his timeRoy Porter author of Enlightenment Britain And The Creation Of The Modern World
