Augustan literature the theme of fallen women in "" (1724). Thematically, Defoe's works are consistently Puritan. They all involve a fall, a degradation of the spirit, a conversion, and an ecstatic elevation. This religious structure necessarily involved a "bildungsroman", for each character had to learn a lesson about him or herself and emerge the wiser. The sentimental novel, or "novel of sentiment", developed after 1740, and among the most famous examples in English are Samuel Richardson's "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded" (1740), Oliver Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" (1766), Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" (1759–67), "Sentimental Journey" (1768), Henry Brooke's "The Fool of Quality" (1765–70),
Laurence Sterne He was involved in, and wrote about, local politics in 1742. His major publication prior to "Tristram Shandy" was the satire "A Political Romance" (1759), aimed at conflicts of interest within York Minster. A posthumously published piece on the art of preaching, "A Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais", appears to have been written in 1759. Rabelais was by far Sterne's favourite author, and in his correspondence he made clear that he considered himself as Rabelais' successor in humour writing, distancing himself from Jonathan Swift: I ... deny I have gone as far as Swift: he keeps a due distance