Collected Works Sterne, Laurence: Complete Works | v.1.1 | Update 25 Nov 2013

[pynch]

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them——no, that’s not the best way to start, so let me begin again: This volume collects the Complete Works of Laurence Sterne (1713–1768, Wikipedia), available in two different editions. As I’ve tried to match the layout of the first editions, the books are sorted strictly in order of first publication (You might call this absurd, I excuse myself by calling it Sternian!):

* * * * * * * * * *

THE
COMPLETE WORKS
of
L A U R E N C E
S T E R N E,
Prebendary of York.

* * * * * * * * * *

☞ The UNKNOWN WORLD. Verses occasioned by bearing a Pass-Bell. By the Rev. Mr St——n. [1743.]

☞ The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zerephath, consider’d: A CHARITY-SERMON, preach’d on Good-Friday, April 17, 1747, in the Parish Church of St. Michael-le-Belfrey, before the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs and Commoners of the City of York, at the Annual Collection for the Support of Two Charity-Schools. By Laurence Sterne, A. M. Prebendary of York. [York, 1747.]

☞ The Abuses of CONSCIENCE: set forth in a SERMON, preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter’s, York, at the Summer Assizes, before the Hon. Mr. Baron Clive, and the Hon. Mr. Baron Smythe, on Sunday, July 29, 1750. By Laurence Sterne, A. M. Prebendary of the said Church. [York, 1750.]

☞ A Political Romance, Addressed To —— ———, Esq; of York. To which is subjoined a KEY. [York, 1757.]

The LIFE and OPINIONS of TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gentleman. ☞ Vol. I. | ☞ Vol. II. [London, 1760.]

The SERMONS of Mr. YORICK. ☞ Vol. I. | ☞ Vol. II. [London, 1760.]

☞ YORICK’s MEDITATIONS upon various Interesting and Important Subjects. [London, 1760.]

The LIFE and OPINIONS of TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gentleman. ☞ Vol. III. | ☞ Vol. IV. [London, 1761.]

The LIFE and OPINIONS of TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gentleman. ☞ Vol. V. | ☞ Vol. VI. [London, 1762.]

The LIFE and OPINIONS of TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gentleman. ☞ Vol. VII. | ☞ Vol. VIII. [London, 1765.]

The SERMONS of Mr. YORICK. ☞ Vol. III. | ☞ Vol. IV. [London, 1766.]

☞ The LIFE and OPINIONS of TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gentleman. Vol. IX. [London, 1767.]

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY through FRANCE and ITALY. by Mr. YORICK. ☞ Vol. I. | ☞ Vol. II. [London, 1768.]

SERMONS by the late Rev. Mr. STERNE. ☞ Vol. V. | ☞ Vol. VI. | ☞ Vol. VII. [London, 1769.]

☞ POLITICAL ROMANCE, Addressed to —— ——— Esq; of York. [London, 1969.]

☞ LETTERS from YORICK to ELIZA. [London, 1775.]

☞ STERNE’s LETTERS to his Friends on Various Occasions. To which is added, his HISTORY of a WATCH COAT, with Explanatory Notes. [London, 1775.]

LETTERS of the late Rev. Mr. LAURENCE STERNE, to his most intimate Friends. With a FRAGMENT in the Manner of Rabelais. To which are prefix’d, Memoirs of his Life and Family, written by Himself. And published by his Daughter, Mrs. Medalle. In Three Volumes. ☞ Vol. I. | ☞ Vol. II. | ☞ Vol. III. [London, 1775.]

☞ The BEAUTIES of STERNE: Including all his Pathetic Tales, and most distinguished Observations on Life. Selected for the Heart of Sensibility. [London, 1782.]

☞ ORIGINAL LETTERS of the late Reverend Mr. LAURENCE STERNE; never before published. [London, 1788.]

☞ The JOURNAL to ELIZA.* [New York, 1904.]

* * * * * * * * * *

These are all the texts that were published in the 18th century. While he’s famous today predominantly for his hilariously funny Tristram Shandy as the first pre-postmodern novel, and to a lesser degree for the Sentimental Journey, the perspective of his contemparies—which this edition tries to simulate, if that is at all possible—was different: in some circles he was better known for his sermons (which outsold Tristram Shandy in his lifetime!), before the letters, published by his daughter, seriously damaged his reputation (the “good writer, but a bad person” attitude towards him lasted well into the 20th century).

Of texts which later appeared in collections (e.g. The Abuses of Conscience or The Case of Elijah) I have only given the title pages or other material not present in the collections. The early publication of A Political Romance wasn’t widely available, so you’ll also find the better-known (and mutilated) later version. As Sterne was very popular after publishing Tristram Shandy, there were books published under his name but not written by him (of which this epub has Yorick’s Meditations as an example) and very successful selections of his writings (The Beauties of Sterne, also contained herein). The authenticity of a few of the letters is still being debated.

Most of the texts are from the great resource Eighteenth Century Collections, volumes 3 to 9 of Tristram Shandy are from the Gutenberg version, and as volumes 3 to 7 of his Sermons were not available, I have transcribed and proof-read them myself.

Patricia once called one of his books “a transcriber’s nightmare”, but they are also a book designer’s dream come true. I have formatted the texts to resemble the first editions as closely as possible, with every variation of italics, small caps and spaced characters imaginable (They say that God comes in many shapes and sizes, here, though, he mostly appears in small caps). There are thin spaces before punctuation marks, margins between paragraphs, and all title pages, half titles, advertisements, publisher’s notes, errata, and frontispieces appear as they were found in the scans of the first editions. Unfortunately, the “catchwords”, “signatures” and “press figures,” which helped the printer and the bookbinder to collocate the books properly, had to be omitted.

The layout of Tristram Shandy posed additional difficulties. There are black pages, blank pages, unique marbled pages (more on that in the POSTSCRIPT), Sterne’s signature in volumes 5, 7, and 9 (to keep them from being pirated!), two chapters which have their original Latin texts on the opposing pages of the English translation (solved here with links at the end of paragraphs that lead to the start of their respective counterparts), or “deleted” chapters with the pagination leaving out some numbers accordingly (marked by an editorial note).

This epub comes in two different versions: the 21st Century Edition with a modern serif font embedded (* and, as an additional text, the 1904 publication The Journal to Eliza), and—with an “olde” font—the 18th Century Edition, in which the long s and some historical ligatures are hardcoded—read it on your digital device like it’s 1788! From what I understand (which might not be very much) it is currently impossible to make ADE display all the historical ligatures correctly without hardcoding them (I hope you don’t have to contradict me here, Jellby, at least not yet). Once it does, I might prepare a retro-futuristic 24th Century Edition.

The editions have the usual links after each text/chapter to bring you back to the respective inline tables of contents, which in this case precede the books, because I didn’t want them to interrupt the original layout.

I started this project more than a year ago, so I’m glad it’s finally finished.

Now to God, &c.

PYNCH.


P O S T S C R I P T:
Each copy of the first edition of Volume III of Tristram Shandy had two unique “marbled pages.” This can of course not be reproduced in this epub, but the first three persons who find the secret marble leaf code hidden in the epub and send it to me in a PM will receive their unique copy with different sets of marbled pages.


UPDATE | v.1.1 [21ST C.E.] | 25 NOV 2013:
Fixed the wrong font attribution in the stylesheet of the 21st Century Edition. [Downloads of v.1.0 : 102]

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[Jellby]

Originally Posted by pynch

From what I understand (which might not be very much) it is currently impossible to make ADE display all the historical ligatures correctly without hardcoding them (I hope you don’t have to contradict me here, Jellby, at least not yet).

I haven't really tried with ADE, but I believe it is only the glyph variants (the long-s, in this case) that you have to hardcode. The historical (or discretionary) ligatures are probably not usable as such, but you can always (if the font license permits that) define these ligatures as standard ones, and then they'll be displayed by ADE (as far as I know).

I'm still dreaming of that day when we can use OpenType features (which includes historical glyphs and ligatures, but also real smallcaps, swash forms, super- and subscripts, old-style figures, etc.) in our ebooks.

[anacreon]

Thanks again. The newly marbled P is part of the Sterne marbled pages I suppose.

[pynch]

Originally Posted by anacreon

Thanks again. The newly marbled P is part of the Sterne marbled pages I suppose.

That’s right, from one of the exclusive sets—all three of which, by the way, are still available. Perhaps I succeeded this time in not making it too easy.

[medard]

Thank you very much for my copy of the exclusive set, pynch.

[doubleshuffle]

Will download soon - have to wind up computer first.

[mazinga]

Thank You Pynch

[Jossi]

Thank you very much, Pynch, for this beautifully prepared upload. Especially the 18th century edition is true eyecandy.
Unfortunately, on an iPad, neither Marvin nor iBooks can reproduce it correctly (in Marvin, everything is in italics). The only ebook-reader for iPad I've found so far which gives the right picture is the Thalia reader (distributed by a German book retail chain). Can anybody recommend another one?

[Jellby]

In the 21st version, you defined the "font-family:Hoefler" (and HoeflerSC), but then use "font-family: English" (and EnglishSC), I guess you forgot to change the font-family from the 18th version.

[pynch]

Thank you very much, Jellby. It is fixed now.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Jossi

Unfortunately, on an iPad, neither Marvin nor iBooks can reproduce it correctly (in Marvin, everything is in italics).

The same happens when I open the HTML files in the Opera browser. I think this is because some @font-face rules are defined with

font-style:italic, oblique;

I'm not sure this is legal CSS and, in my opinion, it is both wrong (the italic font is not oblique, oblique should be the same shape as roman, but slanted) and unneeded (there does not appear to be any reference to any oblique font elsewhere).

Replace it with:

font-style:italic;

and in my browser it works fine.

[medard]

I'm just wondering: Although my Sony T3 has the ability to use hyphenation with english and french digital texts, it doesn't make use of this with your edition of Sterne's works. Is this somehow coded into the ebook?

[pynch]

Not intentionally, no.

__

By the way, there is still one copy with exclusive marbled pages left.

EDIT Dec 13: All 3 copies with different marbled pages are gone now.

[seanos]

Thanks so much for producing these fantastic editions! I had been meaning to read Tristram Shandy for some time and had started with a really sub-par edition that made little attempt to reproduce the original. What a contrast! I read the 18th century edition and, despite the occasional misreading of a long s, thoroughly enjoyed it.

[pynch]

I’m glad you liked it.