Includes 'A Political Romance', a rare and little-known piece of satire by Sterne

Purporting to be an autobiography of the antihero Tristram Shandy, Lawrence Sterne's novel is a comic masterpiece of digression, egoism and sensationalism, as its hilarious asides, explanations and host of memorable secondary characters such as Uncle Toby, Dr Slop, Parson Yorick and Widow Wadman take centre stage, at the expense of the actual life events the book sets out to depict.