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,
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy travels in Europe, and strongly objected to his spleen, acerbity and quarrelsomeness. He modeled the character of Smelfungus on him. The novel was extremely popular and influential and helped establish travel writing as the dominant genre of the second half of the 18th century. Unlike prior travel accounts which stressed classical learning and objective non-personal points of view, "A Sentimental Journey" emphasized the subjective discussions of personal taste and sentiments, of manners and morals over classical learning. Throughout the 1770s female travel writers began publishing significant numbers of sentimental travel accounts. Sentiment also became a favorite style among those expressing