Tristram Shandy Marbled Page

The life and opinions of tristram shandy gentleman also known as just tristram shandy is a novel by laurence sterne it was published in nine volumes the first two appearing in 1759 and seven others following over the next seven years vols.

Tristram shandy marbled page.

The following page is left blank like other early flyleaves so we are left wondering whether he has torn it out or not. Paint her to your own mind is based on sterne s request to create an. Since the first edition consisted of around 4 000 copies this must have. The hand marbled leaf in volume 3 is a motley emblem of tristram s work a colourful swirling pattern subtly different in each copy.

Shockingly audacious even today tristram shandy was printed in installments from 1759 to 1769 about two hundred and fifty years ago. 3 and 4 1761. Flipping through the novel you will come across a totally black page front and back. The original marbled page in tristram shandy this famed marbled page has inspired a great many homages in the quarter millennium since its creation but none lovelier than emblem of my work a celebration of the 250th anniversary of sterne s visionary masterpiece presenting 170 artists with the opportunity to reimagine and reinterpret the.

Earlier in tristram shandy sterne had pulled off another literary stunt by printing an entirely black page to mark the death of yorick prefaced by the shakespearean quote alas. 7 and 8 1765. Laurence sterne 24 november 1713 18 march 1768 was an anglo irish novelist and an anglican clergyman. A close look at the swirls of tristram shandy s famous marbled page which helped define the art of the modern novel.

Laurence sterne misuses the stuff novels are made of the ink the symbols the pages the fly leafs to make readers aware of the materiality of the book. 147 laurence sterne s experimental approach to narrative is attractive to both writers and artists he uses images and devices that are astonishingly modern for a novel of the eighteenth century. Laurence sterne s tristram shandy full title. The life and opinions of tristram shandy gentleman is one of the weirdest books in the western canon written from 1759 to 1769 in seven volumes it.

5 and 6 1762. In modern paperback editions of tristram shandy the marbled page is both monochrome as opposed to the vividly crowded colours of the original and uniform every copy of a penguin classics version has the same marbled page photographically copied from an 18th century original. He wrote the novels the life and opinions of tristram shandy gentleman and a sentimental journey through france and italy and also published many sermons wrote memoirs and was involved in local politics sterne died in london after years of fighting tuberculosis.