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Laurence Sterne's Letter to a Parishioner
Although best known as a novelist and author of Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-67), Laurence Sterne, like Hughes, was also a clergyman. The extracurricular interests shared by Hughes and Sterne emphasise the unprecedented secularisation of the clergy that took place in eighteenth-century England. The newfound prominence of priests as authors and enthusiasts of literature, antiquarianism, science and other worldly subjects is directly mirrored in Hughes’s eclectic tastes as a collector and reader.
Sterne’s irreligious behaviour is emphasised further in this autograph letter sent by him to a parishioner in the village of Sutton (near York) where he was parish priest. Dated 14 March 1758, it recounts Sterne’s response to a charge that he had accused one of his parishioners of seducing the wife of another. Addressed to the accused man, Sterne denies all, and in the process takes the opportunity to quell a further rumour concerning Sterne’s own infidelity with a third parishioner. Nothing further is known relevant to this episode other than that Sterne’s reputed infidelities did indeed cause discord in his own marriage.
Author: Laurence Sterne
Title: [Autograph letter sent to one of his parishioners in Sutton (near York)] (14 March 1758)
Shelfmark: MS 506
