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),
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman fact that "the number of days in all time is no greater than the number of years". A historic site in Geneva, Ohio, called Shandy Hall, is part of the Western Reserve Historical Society. The home was named after the house described in "Tristram Shandy". The "Perry Mason" episode "The Case of the Bogus Books" involves a bookseller selling stolen copies of rare books, in particular a first edition of "Tristram Shandy". In Anthony Trollope's novel "Barchester Towers", the narrator speculates that the scheming clergyman, Mr Slope, is descended from Dr Slop in "Tristram Shandy" (the extra letter having been