A Political Romance

The first work written by Sterne might be labelled a roman à clef or a cronique scandaleuse, which were so popular at the beginning of the eighteenth century. However, even these more suitable names do not do justice to the richness and slipperiness of this text. It can certainly be considered a mock-epic allegory that wraps in its translucent veils a provincial squabble between a church-lawyer, an archbishop and a Dean, i.e. a "Lilliputian" satire on ecclesiastical politics in Sterne s York.