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| Tristram Shandy (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Laurence Sterne
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £1.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £1.98 (99%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 8625
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 474
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 1853262919
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781853262913
ASIN: 1853262919
Publication Date: March 1, 1996
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Excellent edition October 22, 2005
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
The vast number of the allusions in 'Tristram Shandy' to all sorts of subjects make it very difficult for a reader to appreciate the novel on its own. Subsequently this edition is invaluable to students &c who want some idea of what Sterne is actually talking about half the time - the notes are excellent and so is Ricks' introduction.
The funniest book ever written August 29, 2003
26 out of 28 found this review helpful
The augustan enlightenment period of English literature is one of my least favourite; I do not enjoy Dr Johnson, Thomas Gray, and Defoe isn't a great novelist. Which is why I was so surprised by this 'novel', bursting at the seams with a restless comic energy - and it was written by a clergyman! This is the bawdiest of the bawdy, but not low brow in any way. Sterne reinvents the novel as a sea of possibilities, exploiting even the forms limitations. He is a master of illusion, and constantly mocks the reader in good spirit, playing with time scales and propriety. Anybody who likes Swift will be knocked out by this; Sterne outdoes the master of satire at every turn.
The central irony of the novel is that the narrator is meant to tell us his life story, but does not even get born until the fourth volume, as he digresses further and further from the starting point of his conception. This novel embodies the creative process, and is most probably the most creatively 'free' work ever written. Sterne destroys all preconceptions, and sets limits only where he can go no further.
brilliant and witty October 25, 2001
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
The humour may have aged but nothing has altered the unusual and humourous relationship that 'Tristram' creates with the reader. It is a distruction of the usual relationship between the all-knowing narrator and the reader. Yes, Tristram knows all but he tries to tell too much. It takes a reader who questions what Tristram is telling us, who finds humour in the seemingly innocent ambiguity of the text, who sees that Sterne is laughing at our exense to enjoy this novel.
Great value for its sheer scholarly copiousness! June 13, 2001
38 out of 39 found this review helpful
What Laurence Sterne has given us in 'Tristram Shandy' is a landmark piece of prose writing, and what Penguin have done is to re-package that in an edition of equal status. The text follows the established 'Florida' edition of Sterne's work, and the editor Melvin New is right to acknowledge the scholarly importance of Christopher Ricks introduction to the previous Penguin edition, hence it is reprinted here along with New's up to date and equally copious editor's introduction. Thus we have two critical essays by major scholars covering much of what has been written and said about 'Tristram Shandy' for the last 50 years or so. Add to that a glossary and over a hundred pages of notes and annotations to clarify the text's obscurities and references and you've already got more than your money's worth before you've got to the text proper. And what a text too. It isn't by any means to everyone's taste, and some may think it a complete waste of six hundred-odd pages, but herein lies its charm. Yes, it doesn't really get anywhere, and yes it does do odd things like printing squiggly lines and black pages, but it is just this breaking of convention and questioning of novel writing that gives it its power - and humour. It has long been established that what Postmodern authors have been praised for in the last 30 years or so Sterne was doing in the 1760s. And here it is displayed with such exuberance and wit. This is a very funny book, even now, over 300 years later, and it is easy to see how it caused such a stir in a society which was rapidly becoming affected and prudish, with its sexual innuendo. A must for scholars and lovers of Eighteenth Century writing, humour and curiosities. Incredible value and not to be missed.
 Drivel that is trying too hard to shock and be humourous March 9, 2000
15 out of 58 found this review helpful
I was eagerly looking forward to read this since it was meant to break out of the mould of novel writing.Alas, I am sure that it was popular at the time, however, the in-jokes are just unfunny and the exegetic notes need constant review (the notes to the book are 40-50 pages long) otherwise the text is genuinely meaningless. Sadly, this is the first Penguin Classic that I cannot recommend, and I urge those who love the 19th Century Russian Penguin classics to ignore Sterne and leave him to the preserves of dry academics.
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