Max Byrd's lucidly written and compelling volume aims to provide a scholarly introduction to one of the most puzzling pieces of eighteenth-century literature, and a stimulus to critical thought and discussion. Laurence Sterne - an eccentric and largely unsuccessful clergyman - was forty-six when he sat down in January of 1759 to being his literary masterpiece. Aside from his sermons, only two of which had ever been published, Sterne had...