Picaresque novel can simply refer to an episodic recounting of the adventures of an anti-hero on the road. Laurence Sterne's "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" (1761-1767) and "A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy" (1768) each have strong picaresque elements. Voltaire's French novel "Candide" (1759) contains elements of the picaresque. An interesting variation on the tradition of the picaresque is "The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan" (1824), a satirical view on early 19th-century Persia, written by a British diplomat, James Morier. Elements of the picaresque novel are found in Charles Dickens’s "The Pickwick Papers" (1836–37). Gogol occasionally used
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman of the actors to play themselves. In February 2014, a theatrical adaptation by Callum Hale was presented at the Tabard Theatre in Chiswick. "Tristram Shandy" has been translated into many languages, including German (repeatedly, beginning in 1769), Dutch (repeatedly, by Munnikhuisen, 1779; Lindo, 1852 and Jan & Gertrude Starink, 1990), French (repeatedly, beginning in 1785; by Guy Jouvet, 2004), Russian (repeatedly, beginning 1804-1807; by Adrian Antonovich Frankovsky, 1949), Hungarian (by Győző Határ, 1956), Italian (by Antonio Meo, 1958), Czech (by Aloys Skoumal, 1963), Spanish (by José Antonio López de Letona, 1975; Ana María Aznar, 1976 and Javier Marías, 1978), Portuguese