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
Coxwold of the village and was originally built in 1430 as a parsonage for Coxwold's village priest. It is a small brick building, with a mossy, stone-covered roof, wide gables, and massive chimney-stacks. It was originally a timber-framed, open-hall house but was considerably altered in the 17th century. The stone tablet above its doorway states that Sterne wrote "Tristram Shandy" and "A Sentimental Journey" at Shandy Hall. This is not entirely accurate, for two (of the nine) volumes of "Tristram Shandy" had already been published in 1759 before Sterne moved to Coxwold. Sir George Orby Wombwell, 4th Baronet, the last surviving