first edition
1767 · London
by Sterne, Lawrence
London: R. and J. Dodsley, T. Becket and P.A. de Hondt, 1767. First edition. First editions, first state throughout, signed by Sterne in vols. V, VII, and IX as called for, to protect his book from piracy. 9 volumes, small octavo (158 x 103 mm). Finely bound in early 20th-century panelled calf by Zaehnsdorf, spines and covers decorated in gilt, twin black morocco labels, board edges and turn-ins gilt, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. Half-titles in vols IV, V, VI and IX as issued; vol. I with E5 printed black on both sides, extra-illustrated with frontispiece from the second edition; vol. III with the unsigned leaf, marbled on both sides, inserted between L4 and L5. Bookplate of the lawyer and bibliophile Charles Plumptre Johnson (1853-1938) to front pastedowns. Light rubbing to joints and extremities, occasional faint spot to contents, but an excellent set overall.
The episodic nature of its publication means that Tristram Shandy is rare in first edition throughout. A masterpiece of English literature, and a work of extraordinary novelty, Tristram Shandy overturned numerous conventions of how novels should be written, structured, and - with its playful marbled, black, and illustrative pages - printed. The work is widely seen as a precursor of modernist and post-modernist fiction, and was an acknowledged influence on various 20th-century writers, including Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.
Rothschild 1970. (Inventory #: 5981)
The episodic nature of its publication means that Tristram Shandy is rare in first edition throughout. A masterpiece of English literature, and a work of extraordinary novelty, Tristram Shandy overturned numerous conventions of how novels should be written, structured, and - with its playful marbled, black, and illustrative pages - printed. The work is widely seen as a precursor of modernist and post-modernist fiction, and was an acknowledged influence on various 20th-century writers, including Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.
Rothschild 1970. (Inventory #: 5981)