Since its publication in 1759 Tristram Shandy has remained a fashionable piece of writing, as Sterne himself proclaimed. But critics and readers have always found it difficult to summarize or categorize Sterne's work. Contrary to the title, more is told of Uncle Toby's passion for war-gaming and Walter Shandy's eccentric theories than of Tristram's life. Only in the third volume -- after a series of hilarious digressions -- does the hero and narrator manage to describe his birth, and the novel ends five years before Tristram is actually born.

Yet there is method in Sterne's apparent madness. Looking back to the serio-comedy of Rabelais and Cervantes while anticipating modern experimental fictions, Tristram Shandy enacts Sterne's belief that only the most digressive of narratives can do justice to the 'riddles and mysteries' of the world.

The most comprehensive paperback edition available, with introduction, notes, selected criticism, text summary and chronology of Sterne's life and times