A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy and Continuation of the Bramine's Journal

"Melvyn New's and W. G. Day's edition of Sterne's Sentimental Journey is the single best scholarly edition of that quirky but essential text available for student use.  The notes are meticulous and hugely informative.  The Introduction is lucid and useful, and the supplementary materials, including excerpts from Tristram Shandy and some of Sterne's sermons, provide essential background."
     —John Richetti, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania

SKU
26459g

With Related Texts

Laurence Sterne
Edited, with Introduction & Notes, by Melvyn New & W. G. Day

2006 - 280 pp.

Grouped product items
Format ISBN Price Qty
Paper 978-0-87220-800-1
$8.00
Instructor Examination (Review) Copy 978-0-87220-800-1
$1.00

". . . there is nothing unmixt in this world. . . ."
     —A Sentimental Journey (The Passport: Versailles)

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In annotated texts based on those of the acclaimed Florida Edition of The Works of Laurence Sterne, this edition features the two works Sterne produced in the final year of his illness-plagued life: the witty, bawdy, pathetic, and thoughtful A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy; and Continuation of the Bramine's Journal, Sterne's correspondence to a twenty-two-year-old married Englishwoman living in India ("a Diary," as he put it, "of the miserable feelings of a person separated from a Lady for whose Society he languish'd").

Together, these mutually illuminating works offer rich insight into their author's hopes, fears, loves, longings, and philosophy as he prepared to face death and judgment.  Excerpts from related texts provide context for understanding the title works in relation to the earlier writings and life of this exuberant yet subtle genius of eighteenth-century English literature.

 

Reviews:

"Melvyn New's and W. G. Day's edition of Sterne's Sentimental Journey is the single best scholarly edition of that quirky but essential text available for student use.  The notes are meticulous and hugely informative.  The Introduction is lucid and useful, and the supplementary materials, including excerpts from Tristram Shandy and some of Sterne's sermons, provide essential background."
     —John Richetti, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania

 

"In terms of the quality and quantity of annotation, as well as the care spent in establishing the authoritative texts, the Hackett edition renders all other competing editions of these two works flimsy and obsolete."
     —Vincent Carretta, Department of English, University of Maryland

 

". . . [A]n extremely useful student edition. . . . For obvious reasons, this student edition cannot be as copiously annotated as the Florida research edition, but it is generously annotated all the same.  Many notes are simply explanatory: what is a 'Desobligeant,' and why is it called that?  More interesting, however, are notes in which the editors use their considerable expertise to place some particular word or reference or sentiment expressed in Sterne's text into the broader contexts of his thought.  So, for example, they point out numerous instances in which Sterne was recalling phrases from the Bible or earlier literature or in which his late notions echo or revise ideas first expressed years earlier in his own sermons, his correspondence, or Tristam Shandy.  They bravely attempt to untangle some of Sterne's expressions which hover uneasily between English and imperfect French; they point out many instances of Sterne's naughty doubles entendres not previously noticed (by this reader).  More generally, they place Yorick's remarks and Sterne's thinking in the midst of the culture and customs of their times—the costs of travel, the experiences of other travelers, political considerations, what people were reading, and so on.  In the same vein, they provide an appendix which reprints eight longer segments from Sterne's other writings to illustrate some of his characteristic attitudes.
    "All in all, then, this is a very 'teacherly' edition, with able guides providing useful and reliable guidance.  (A tip of the hat is due to the publisher as well, for bringing out this edition at a price that a student might actually afford to pay."
     —Peter M. Briggs, The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer

 

"Melvin New and W. G. Day have edited what should become the teaching edition of Sterne's A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy and equipped the novel, which they couple with his Continuation of the Bramine's Journal, with appendices excerpting Sterne's Sermons and his 'Letters from Yorick to Eliza.'"
     —Studies in English Literature

 

"I have been teaching A Sentimental Journey for many years and have been very impressed with this edition from Hackett.  It uses a text reliable enough to be used for scholarly purposes, is appended with helpful and well-considered apparatus, and is laid out beautifully, with good margins and arranged chapters."
     —W. B. Gerard, Department of English, Auburn University Montgomery

 

"The text is that of the Florida edition (also edited by Messrs. New and Day), and, like the Florida edition but unlike most teaching editions, this one begins successive chapters of A Sentimental Journey on separate pages.  Most of the matters annotated in the Florida text are annotated here, usually in the same words.
    "[The] notes do not resolve the ambiguities of the novel, although they often point them out and occasionally record other efforts to settle them.  Although, as the Introduction carefully reveals, Yorick's journey does not correspond to Sterne's actual trips to the continent, fictional versions of real events do appear, and the notes recognize them and supply documentation.  Just as the editors point out analogous incidents in Sterne's experience, they note similar passages and sentiments in Tristram Shandy and Yorick's Sermons, and the Appendix contains substantial excerpts from three of the sermons, the opening and concluding passages of Book VII of Tristram Shandy, and Tristram's encounter with Maria from Book IX, as well as two of Yorick's letters to Eliza Draper.  The notes translate Yorick's French and often correct it, but, more importantly, they provide a wealth of information regarding France and Sterne.  By explaining matters of fact, they allow Sterne's ambiguities to remain clearly and gloriously ambiguous.
    "Unlike the Florida edition this one places notes at the bottom of the page rather than at the end of the book. . . . Different teachers will have different opinions about this possible intrusion, but in a text about which readers do not feel confident with their own competence, such annotation helps define the areas of uncertainty.  In its useful information and tactful silences, this edition by Messrs. New and Day is the best alternative to the Florida edition itself."
     —Charles A. Knight, The Scriblerian

 

About the Authors:

Melvyn New is Professor of English, University of Florida, and General Editor of the Florida Edition of The Works of Laurence Sterne.

W. G. Day is Eccles Librarian and former head of the English Department, Winchester College, U.K., and co-editor, with Melvyn New, of Volume Six of the Florida Edition of The Works of Laurence Sterne.