of Sterne, holding a bag of cash in one hand and
Tristram Shandy in the other, promising "My next two Volumes come out at Christmas" to a crowd of people quoting the novel
Eighteenth-century response First instalment The immediate success of
Tristram Shandy made Sterne a literary celebrity for the rest of his life. The literary historian Judith Hawley writes that the novel "dazzled readers with its originality and daring", and it sold out several times in the first year. Although Sterne was an active promoter of the book and attentive to its commercial potential, he publicly emphasised social rather than financial gains, saying "I wrote not [to] be
fed, but to be
famous". He gained social patronage from
William Pitt and
Charles Watson-Wentworth (both future
Prime Ministers), was painted by the celebrity portraitist
Joshua Reynolds, and spent the spring in London enjoying social invitations from elevated society; he wrote that "from morning to night my Lodgings ... are full of the greatest Company".
George Washington enjoyed the book. Sterne answered to the names Tristram Shandy and Parson Yorick, using the personas of his fictional characters as part of his promotion for his book. There was some controversy when it was discovered that the novel — initially published anonymously — was written by a clergyman: its risqué humour was seen as incompatible with the moral solemnity expected of a religious figure, despite Sterne's invocations of the satirists-
cum-priests
François Rabelais and
Jonathan Swift as precedents. Sterne's biographer Ian Campbell Ross argues that this contradiction became part of Sterne's success: "What distinguished Sterne for many contemporaries was the surprising coupling of a laudable morality with whimsical bawdy. ...his literary and personal success lay precisely in joining contradictions." Critics of the novel included the writers
Samuel Johnson, who commented "Nothing odd will do long" and predicted that the novel would be forgotten, and
Horace Walpole, who wrote: "At present nothing is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and tedious performance: it is a kind of novel called,
The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy ... The best thing in it is a sermon — oddly coupled with a good deal of bawdy, and both the composition of a clergyman." A more positive anonymous assessment praised Sterne's "infinite share of wit and goodness, things… which are very seldom, indeed, found in any degree together".
Later instalments (1762) Volumes three and four, published a year later, also sold well. Sterne did not tone down the bawdiness of the novel, which was seen by some of his critics as an intentional provocation. After this instalment, Sterne did not renew his publishing relationship with Dodsley, who has paid him generously for the copyright of the first four volumes; the reason is not known, but Sterne's biographer Ian Campbell Ross suggests that Sterne's insistence on controversial humour likely played a role. Sterne was presented at court, though as a sign of his somewhat mixed reputation,
King George III's reception was chilly. After publishing volumes five and six in late 1761, Sterne was pleased to discover that he was as large a celebrity in Paris as he had been in London, and spent six months enjoying his introductions to notable figures like the encyclopedist
Denis Diderot. He was painted by the prominent
polymath Louis Carrogis Carmontelle. This instalment sold more slowly than others, though a
sentimental episode about a sick army officer (Le Fever) drew praise. The fourth instalment, consisting of volumes seven and eight in 1765, was increasingly sentimental, and garnered praise for its
pathos. The fifth and final instalment, of volume nine in 1767, also met what Ian Campbell Ross calls "the usual mixture of extravagant praise and indignant censure", though its slightly smaller print run (3,500 copies rather than the 4,000 of recent instalments) suggests that Sterne had experienced lagging sales.
Nineteenth century In the nineteenth century, the poet and critic
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) praised the novel. The young philosopher
Karl Marx was a devotee of
Tristram Shandy, and wrote a still-unpublished short humorous novel,
Scorpion and Felix, that was obviously influenced by Sterne's work. The German writer
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe praised Sterne in ''
Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years, which in turn influenced the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called Tristram Shandy
one of "the four immortal romances" and the philosopher and logician Ludwig Wittgenstein considered it "one of my favourite books". Among British writers, the novelists Walter Scott and Charles Dickens expressed appreciation for Tristram Shandy''. However, many
Victorian critics were hostile to Sterne on the grounds of obscenity. Sterne's harshest critic in this period was the novelist and literary critic
William Makepeace Thackeray, who denounced him in his lecture series on eighteenth-century English humorists. Prompted by partly inaccurate biographical information, Thackeray censured Sterne for personal debauchery and profligacy, and argued that his writing was marred by "a latent corruption". Other Victorian critics accused Sterne of
plagiarism, often referencing an earlier work of analysis by writer and physician
John Ferriar. As Ferriar demonstrated in his 1798 book
Illustrations of Sterne,
Tristram Shandy incorporates many passages taken almost word for word from all of his influences, which have been rearranged to serve a new meaning. Ferriar himself did not see these borrowings negatively and commented: Ferriar believed that, for example, Sterne's re-used passages from
Robert Burton's
The Anatomy of Melancholy were being creatively repurposed to ridicule Burton's solemn tone and weighty quotations. Nonetheless, Victorian writers used Ferriar's findings to claim that Sterne was artistically dishonest, and almost unanimously accused him of mindless plagiarism. Scholar
Graham Petrie closely analysed the alleged passages in 1970; he argues that "Sterne's copying was far from purely mechanical, and that his rearrangements go far beyond what would be necessary for merely stylistic ends". == Influence and legacy ==