Laurence Stern - Voyage sentimental à travers la France et l'Italie - 1841

Quarto (28 x 19 cm), navy blue contemporary three-quarter binding, bordered on the boards. Flat spine with romantic decorations. Original cover retained. Binding signed V. Champs. In very good condition, light rubbing on the corners. Impeccable inside (see photos).

Illustrated with 170 vignettes and 11 tipped-in compositions, by Tony Johannot and Jacque.


Victor Champs (1844-1912) was one of the most prolific and renowned bookbinders of the late 19th century. His bindings for bibliophiles are sought after by collectors, for the soundness of their book blocks and the workmanship. Like Carayon, they were the bookbinders who, on relatively simple works, demonstrated the highest degree of perfection of workmanship. (Fléty, p. 41)

After the success of Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne decided to send one of the characters from the novel on a sentimental journey. This is how Yorick, a simple pastor and the author’s double, crossed the English Channel and found himself in France, where he went from city to city, from Calais to Moulins, through Paris, hoping to reach Italy. The short chapters of this account, filled with humour, lightness and sensuality, punctuate the stages of the journey. The narrator notes all of his impressions on the spot: the astonishing mores of the French, the meetings he makes along the way, and the beating of his own heart.
For Nietzche, Sterne was “the freest man of all time”: the fantasy in this sentimental journey is the vivid proof of this.