Owing, perhaps, to his Irish blood, Laurence Sterne is one of the most engaging buttonholders in literature. He launches into conversation with no story to tell, little plan of narration, and a habit of slipping down every side-turning... but there is no getting away from him. A Sentimental Journey began as an account of a tour by coach through France and Italy: it ends as a treasury of dramatic sketches, pathetic and ironic incidents, philosophical musings, reminiscences, and anecdotes. 'It is perhaps the most bodiless novel ever written', as Mr Alvarez remarks in his introduction. Nevertheless the studied artlessness of a work which was written by the dying author of Tristram Shandy forestalled by nearly two centuries those modern writers who in some ways resemble him - Joyce, Beckett and Virginia Woolf.