First published in 1768, just before the author's death, this novel reflects Laurence Sterne's travels through France and Italy as far south as Naples. After returning, he was determined to describe his travels in the form of fiction. The novel can be seen as an epilogue to his better-known work "Tristram Shandy" and as an answer to Tobias Smollett's decidedly unsentimental "Travels through France and Italy." This novel was extremely popular and influential and helped establish travel writing as the dominant genre of the second half of the 18th century.
