A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy 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, as Sterne was facing death. In 1765, Sterne travelled through France and Italy as far south as Naples, and after returning determined to describe his travels from a sentimental point of view. The novel can be seen as an epilogue to the possibly unfinished work "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman", and also as an answer to Tobias Smollett's decidedly unsentimental "Travels Through France and Italy". Sterne had met Smollett during his
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