A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

Episodic, funny, and surprisingly modern, A Sentimental Journey is a classic eighteenth-century novel. The quintessential novel of sentiment, A Sentimental Journey masquerades as the fragmentary travel journal of Parson Yorick, a whimsical and amorous Englishman abroad. Accompanied through Paris and the provinces by his loyal French valet, Yorick enjoys a variety of sentimental and often comic encounters with a lively range of French characters. The novel is also punctuated by passages of self-conscious reflection on questions of personal and national identity, slavery and freedom, poverty and inequality. This edition focuses on the novel’s treatment of sentiment and its status as a travel narrative, as well as its publishing history and enduring influence.