A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy Writings of Mr. Sterne". In the 1880s, American writer Elizabeth Robins Pennell and her artist husband Joseph Pennell undertook a journey following Sterne's route. Their travels by tandem bicycle were turned into the book "Our sentimental journey through France and Italy" (1888). Viktor Shklovsky considered Sterne one of his most important precursors as a writer, and his own "A Sentimental Journey: Memoirs, 1917-1922" was indebted to both Sterne's own "Sentimental Journey" and "Tristram Shandy". A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a novel by Laurence Sterne, written and first published in 1768,
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