Excerpt

Laurence Sterne was born on November 24, 1713, at Clonmel in Tipperary, Ireland. His father, Roger, was an itinerant army ensign, the black-sheep son of a prominent family of Yorkshire gentry and grandson of the archbishop of York; his mother was the daughter of an army provisioner. Sterne's early childhood was spent traveling between Ireland and England as his father's fortunes dictated; not until he was ten years old did the boy permanently settle in Yorkshire. From 1723 until his father's death in Jamaica in 1731 he was sent to school near Halifax. In 1733 he entered Jesus College, Cambridge. Less than two months after taking his B.A. degree in 1737, Sterne was ordained a deacon and, like many deserving…