Tristram Shandy

*Tristram Shandy* is famous for its bizarre narrative structure, featuring constant digressions, blank pages, and a narrator who struggles to tell his life story chronologically. By the end of the third volume, the protagonist has barely even managed to be born.

Laurence Sterne published the novel in nine volumes released sequentially between 1759 and 1767. The first two volumes were an immediate sensation in English literature, praised by readers but sometimes criticized by traditionalists.

Aside from the titular narrator, the novel heavily focuses on his father, Walter Shandy, and his Uncle Toby. Uncle Toby's obsession with military engineering and his garden recreations of battlefields provide some of the book's most famous comedic moments.

Yes, Sterne included a completely black page to mourn the death of the character Parson Yorick, as well as a physical marbled page. These visual tricks were deliberate attempts to physically break the fourth wall of the traditional 18th-century book format.