Beschreibung:

STERNE, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. By Mr. Yorick. London: T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt, 1768.
STERNE, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. By Mr. Yorick. London: T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt, 1768. 2 volumes, 8° (168 x 107 mm). Half-titles, 16-page list of subscribers, Sterne's engraved coat-of-arms on D3v of vol. II. Original wrappers, uncut (some chipping to spines, lower cover of vol. II detached); green morocco folding case, spine gilt. Provenance : B. Quaritch (collation note date 1924). FIRST EDITION , with Rothschild's variant (2), Vol. I, p. 150 and variant (1), vol. II, page 133. Sterne barely lived to see his work in print. "The real journey immortalized in the story was made in October, 1765," states Grolier, "in December, 1767, two volumes were completed, and on February 27, the work was published... On the eighteenth of March, Sterne died." Although it was certainly a more sentimental book than Tristram Shandy , the presiding spirit of the author was otherwise the same. "Yorick in Tristram Shandy, was represented as an Englishman, descended from the Yorick of Shakespeare, 'a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.' Sterne also used the pseudonym in his Sermon by Mr. Yorick, published in 1760, so that the authorship of this book was probably never in doubt. 'The lively, witty, sensitive and heedless parson,' was, as Sir Walter Scott says, 'the well-known personification of Sterne himself.'" Without the advertisement leaf “slipped inside Vol.I” (Rothschild) found in some copies. Ashley V, p.206; Cross II, p.271; Grolier English 54; Rothschild 1971; Tinker 1978.