Excerpt from The Life Public Services of Simon Sterne The following pages are designed to perpetuate the memory of a man whose life was devoted to the service of humanity. Simon Sterne never held executive office, but he did much to raise the standard of responsibility attached to the adminis tration of a public trust he never sat in the State or National Legislature, but no man of his genera tion exercised so much influence in elevating the character oflegislative methods he never occupied a place on the Bench, but the interpretation of the law affecting railroads and corporations owes more to him than any one of his contemporaries. His life was full of activity, and from his twenty second year to his death there was no year in it which was not rich in effort that redounded to the benefit of his fellowmen. The author of this volume disclaims other credit for its con tents than that which belongs to the judicious compiler and conscientious interpreter. All of the book that is his is the arrangement of its contents, and the thread of narrative and explana tion on which the subject - matter is strung. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Laurence Sterne was in his mid-forties when the publication of Tristram Shandy catapulted him from obscurity into unprecedented literary fame. The story of how a provincial clergyman became the most fashionable writer of his day is extraordinary, and all the more remarkable for having beenengineered by its subject. 'I wrote not to be fed, but to be famous', Laurence Sterne declared of his comic masterpiece, and in order to achieve his ambition he became an assiduous networker, as astute a self-publicist as any modern author could hope to be. Shocked critics of Tristram Shandydenounced his bawdy novel as a scandal to the cloth but Sterne revelled in the celebrity his age's obsession with novelty and fashion allowed him. He at last found compensation for a life characterized by alternating moods of gaiety and gloom. Unhappily married to a woman who suffered a nervousbreakdown and at one time believed herself to be the Queen of Bohemia, Sterne became notorious for his sexual and sentimental liaisons with other women. His second book, A Sentimental Journey, transmuted his experiences into literary expressions of moral feeling. Dependent for so much of his life on patrons, it was the patronage of the reading public that was to secure his livelihood. Tristram Shandy remains one of the most innovative and influential novels in world literature, and Ian Campbell Ross makes full use of important new materials to examineSterne's life and career and the cult of the celebrity author.