Sterne Digital Library

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How we think about literary history has typically been shaped by what we think the 'important' books are, and who wrote them. Although scholars have sought to challenge ideas of canonicity by asserting the place of 'lesser' works - those produced by marginal groups, for instance, or which do not make significant claims on what we deem to be 'good' literature - these recuperations have often been positioned in opposition to so-called canonical works. A more revealing approach to how literary cultures have flourished in the past can be shaped by considering the symbiotic relations between apparently 'important' and 'lesser' works as realised through the dynamic processes of adaptation. Creatively recycling a popular text into new forms, media and modes (the visual, performance, material culture) invigorates the inherent connections and differences between the marginal and the central in stimulating new ways. The processes of literary adaptation are deep-rooted and hold many significant literary examples, from Philip Sidney to J.K. Rowling. Yet eighteenth-century readers exuberantly refashioned texts into alternative artistic forms against the back-drop of an emergent celebrity culture and a rapidly expanding book trade. Popular works in this period enjoyed a lively, reciprocal relationship with the adaptations they inspired. Texts became substance for public consumption and regurgitation in new forms, as readers turned creators by producing their own versions of famous works. Laurence Sterne (1713-68) was one of the most popular and successful writers of his day. His idiosyncratic novels, 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman' (1759-67) and 'A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy' (1768), were wildly successful and inspired a host of 'Sterneana': creative responses in word, image, and performance. Whilst other popular texts from this period inspired creativity, none experienced adaptation as prolific or diverse as Sterne's. Sterne's first readers found his fiction to be strikingly 'novel' in every sense, from 'Tristram Shandy's' erratic story-telling, playful typography, and bawdry, to 'A Sentimental Journey's' ambiguous mixture of erotic humour and touching pathos. Both novels generated sequels, imitations, continuations, song, drama, and visual and material culture at home and abroad; 'Tableau Sentimental de la France' by 'Yoryck' (1792), for instance, uses Sterne's sympathetic traveller to critique post-Revolutionary France. Sterne continues to fascinate readers: his books have never gone out of print; there is a steady flow of visitors to his home, Shandy Hall; artists, writers, and musicians still produce their own creative interpretations of his idiosyncratic works. Experimental visual representation of narrative was pioneered by Sterne and abounds in Sterneana. The SDL will be the first digital resource to experiment with digitally encoding visual narrative like engraved lines, white space and non-verbal typographic marks. The main aim of this project is to use 'Sterneana' as a case study for examining the dynamic culture of eighteenth-century adaptation. Its objectives are to create the Sterne Digital Library, a digital resource combining Sterne's fiction with lesser-known and hitherto marginalised Sterneana, allowing users to search across them and identify their synergies and explore the wider implications afterlives hold in literary culture. It will be illuminated by explanatory texts compiled by world-leading scholars which introduce, elucidate, and encourage new routes towards exploring it. Hosted on Cambridge Digital Library, an open-access platform, it will bring new audiences to treasures of Cambridge University Library (CUL) and the Laurence Sterne Trust at Shandy Hall (LST) that are unmatched in number or scope.