The Works of Laurence Sterne. With an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author. Complete in Eight Volumes. Volume 8. Sermons of Laurence Sterne, Prebendary of York, and Vicar of Sutton on the Forest, and of Stillington near York

A small-town vicar suffering from tuberculosis, Laurence Sterne burst onto the literary scene with the phenomenally successful multi-volume fiction work Tristram Shandy. Sterne's work, which practically bursts at the seams with sexual innuendo, was extremely popular in the London of his day - although Tristram Shandy was denounced on moral grounds by such leading figures as Samuel Johnson and Samuel Richardson.