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),
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