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INTRODUCTION
The first edition of A Political Romance (1759), reprinted here for the first time, is a rare pamphlet from the pen of Laurence Sterne. Indeed, it was supposed until recently that this specimen of Sterne's humor, antedating Tristram Shandy, existed in no other form than the one given it the year after Sterne's death in an edition brought out by a London bookseller named Murdoch, with the assistance perhaps of John Hall-Stevenson, the author's intimate friend. The title-page of that edition runs:
"A Political Romance, Addressed to ——— Esq. of York. London Printed and sold by J. Murdoch, bookseller, opposite the New Exchange Coffe-house in the Strand. MDCCLXIX."
It is a duodecimo volume, having an "Advertisement" (pp. iv-ix) and a list of the characters names in the allegory with their real names opposite (p. x). The Romance itself covers forty-seven pages. In the "Advertisement" the editor or bookseller says: "This little piece was written by Mr. Sterne in the year 1759, but for private
