Joshua Reynolds Laurence Sterne, 1760
© National Portrait Gallery, London
(1713-1768)
'The man's head indeed was a little turned before, now topsyturvy with his success and fame.'
Horace Walpole
Educated at Cambridge, Sterne took holy orders, living in Yorkshire and earning a reputation as a good country pastor. The publication of the first two volumes of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy in 1760 transformed his fortunes; he came to London to find himself famous. Reynolds painted his portrait and the two became friends. A tour of France and Italy in 1765 provided material for his A Sentimental Journey published in 1768, but he died a few months later. His body was taken by grave robbers, but such was his fame that it was recognised while being used at an anatomy lecture and secretly re-buried.