Errata sheet

The quite comprehensive errata sheet in the 1st. danish complete ed. of Tristram Shandys levned og meninger (Borgen, 1976) are, despite the publishers assumed cursing on the printer, a beautiful feature in the edition. Very shandean. The Borgen, 1976 ed. was printed by The Whitefriars Press in London — which might explain the extensive erratum. Mint copy from 2nd hand shop in Århus. 

! 4

Exclamation mark in: Tristram Shandys levned og meninger 1st. danish ed. (Borgen, 1976). Copy at the Main Library in Copenhagen. 

! 3

Exclamation mark in: Tristram Shandys levned og meninger 1st. danish ed. (Borgen, 1976). Copy at the Main Library in Copenhagen. 

! 2

Exclamation mark in: Tristram Shandys levned og meninger 1st. danish ed. (Borgen, 1976). Copy at the Main Library in Copenhagen. 

!

Exclamation mark in: Tristram Shandys levned og meninger 1st. danish ed. (Borgen, 1976). Copy at the Main Library in Århus. 

Exclamation mark [!] [eks.kləˈmeɪ.ʃənˌmɑːk]:

The modern graphical representation of the exclamation mark is believed to have been born in the Middle Ages. The Medieval copyists used to write at the end of a sentence the Latin word io to indicate joy. The word io meant hurray. Along time, the i moved above the o, and the o became smaller, becoming a point.

The exclamation mark was first introduced into English printing in the 15th century to show emphasis, and was called the "sign of admiration or exclamation" or the "note of admiration" until the mid-17th century; admiration referred to its Latin sense of wonderment.

The exclamation mark did not have its own dedicated key on standard manual typewriters before the 1970s. Instead, one typed a period, backspaced, and typed an apostrophe. In the 1950s, secretarial dictation and typesetting manuals in America referred to the mark as "bang," perhaps from comic books where the ! appeared in dialogue balloons to represent a gun being fired, although the nickname probably emerged from letterpress printing.

The Sentimental Journey

This 1897 edition of A Sentimental Journey, purchased from a Yorkian Antiquarian, announces on the publishers binding, that this is The Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne. Though, inside the book the title page states A Sentimental Journey. — "Pox take the fellow!": http://sterneetcetera.blogspot.dk/2015/07/tristam-tristram.html

Alas, poor Yorick!

— "Then everything turns black!" — Black page in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Penguin Classics. London, 2003. Copy at the Main Library in Copenhagen. 

Sternes stones 2

In 1893 a second stone was erected on Sternes assumed grave at St George’s Field Burial Ground, London. The stone corrects some factual errors on the first stone (the date of death) This photo shoving the first and the second stone at St George’s Field Burial Ground is found in Shelly, Henry C.: Untrodden English Ways. Boston, 1908. Shelly writes: "Although the grave of Laurence Sterne is within a stone's throw of one of the most crowded thoroughfares of London, there are few save Americans who turn aside from the stream of life in Bayswater Road to gaze upon his resting-place in the St. George's burial-ground. He had boasted in "Tristram Shandy" that his preference would be to die in an inn, untroubled by the presence and services of his friends; yet when, in his London lodgings, he began to realize that death might be near, he pined for his daughter Lydia to nurse him. Only a hired nurse and a footman stood by Sterne's deathbed. The latter had been sent to inquire after the health of the famous author, and, being told by the landlady of the house to go upstairs and see for himself, he reached the death-chamber just as Sterne was passing away. Putting up his hand as though to ward off a blow, he ejaculated, "Now it is come," and so died. The story goes that even as he was dying, the nurse was busy possessing herself of the gold sleeve-links from his wrists.

Despite the fame he had won, only two mourners followed Sterne to his grave. But other eyes, it seems, watched the burial; for it is affirmed that two days later the body was taken from the grave and sold to a professor of anatomy for dissection. Only an accident revealed the identity of the "subject." Happening to have some friends visiting him at the time, the professor invited them to witness a demonstration, and on their following him to his surgery one of them was horrified to recognize in the partially dissected corpse the features of his friend Laurence Sterne. Such is the story, and most authorities agree in thinking it likely to be true. Perhaps it was not unknown to the two masons who erected the first stone over the grave, for their inscription began with the significant words, "Near to this place lies the body," etc. How near, or how far away, the actual remains of Sterne at length found a resting-place will probably never be known."

Sternes stones

When Sterne died in London of consumption, he was buried at the St George’s Field Burial Ground. Two days after the burial, it is said, Sterne’s body was stolen from the grave, and sold to the anatomist at the Cambridge University for dissection. Someone recognised the corpse as being Sterne, in some versions of the story it was a student, in others a friend of the anatomist, in others a member of the public who was paying to see a public dissection. — Sterne’s corpse was discretely returned to St George’s Field, and two years later two freemasons erected this memorial stone near to his original burial place. The text says that although Sterne wasn't a member of their society, he might have been, if just he has lived a bit longer. The stone also states that Sterne died the 13. sep. 1768 — even that Sterne actual died 6 month earlier on the 18. march that year — The stone was in 1969, along with Sternes scull and the nearby found skeletal bones, moved to Coxwold and reburied. The epitaphstone was hanged in the porch at St. Michaels Church in Coxwold.

Fly

"—being determined as long as I live or write (which in my case means the same thing) never to give the honest gentleman a worse word or a worse wish than my uncle Toby gave the fly which buzz’d about his nose all dinner-time,———"Go,—go, poor devil," quoth he,—"get thee gone,—why should I hurt thee? This world is surely wide enough to hold both thee and me.""
A dried wing from a musca domestica in Tristram Shandys levned og meninger 1st. danish ed. (Borgen, 1976). Copy sold from Åby Library. (10 kr.)