Tristram Shandy, the Public Ledger, and William Dodd

Tristram Shandy, the Public Ledger, and William Dodd Anne Bandry Launched on 12 January 1760 as the fifth London daily, the Public Ledger combined innovation and tradition. It introduced the four-column format, and, on its first page, took up the proven feature of fictional correspondence, of which Oliver Goldsmith's "Chinese Letters" (1760-71) are but the most famous example.1 The convention of using a foreigner to analyse society was one way of making it more than a list ofcommercial news. Printing the reactions of fictional readers both to contemporary events and to the paper itself was another. This essay will examine how one such contributor participated in building the identity of the Public Ledger by playing on the reputation of a character, Tristram Shandy, whose public existence had begun just a few weeks earlier. A missing piece of the reception of Laurence Sterne's first instalment of his masterpiece will thus be provided.2 1 Robert R. Bataille, "Hugh Kelly, WilliamJackson, and the Editorship of the Public Ledger," Papers of the Bibliographical Society ofAmerica 79 (1985), 523, and Robert L. Haig, The Gazetteer 1 735-1 797: A Study in the Eighteenth-Century English Newspaper (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960), p. 43, stress the innovative character of the Public Ledger. Haig notes that while being unique, the Public Ledger's "Register Office" was "conducted on the pattern ofJohn and Henry Fielding's 'Universal Register Office.' " 2 An analysis of the fictionalizing oftrade during the first months ofthe Public Ledgeris given in my "The Visitor, the Inspectress, Selima, Obadiah, et Tristram: ou comment s'anime le Public Ledger en 1760-61," Bulletin de la Société d'Études Anglo-Américaines des XVIIe et xmf Siècles50 (2000), 283-98.In "Imitations of Tristram Shandy," CriticalEssays (m Laurence Sterne, ed. Melvyn New (New York: GK. Hall, 1998), pp. 39-52, 1 deal with some of the reactions to Sterne. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 14, Numbers 3-4, April-July 2002 312EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION Wilbur L. Cross and Arthur H. Cash mention two letters by "Tristram Shandy" and one by "Ebenezer Plain-Cloth" in the Public Ledger in the spring of 1760.3 There are, in fact, eight relevant items in line with other contemporary reactions to Tristram Shandy. Four of these items in the Public Ledger were part of "The Visitor" letters, a series which began on 19 April 1760: letters of 1, 10, 22 May, and 3 July. The Rev. William Dodd, executed for forgery in 1777, collected many of the Visitor essays, which he published in two volumes as The Visitorin 1764.4 Another item is one of several Public Ledger columns (30 April) which, while it predated the first Visitor essay, Dodd incorporated with minimal changes into his collection, demonstrating that his contributions to the paper were not limited to "The Visitor." These five letters interact with the two "Letters by Tristram Shandy" (28 April, 14 May) and an earlier address "to the Publisher" (23 April) which also mentions Sterne's text. All eight items, I believe, came from Dodd's pen. In early April 1760, Robert Dodsley published the first London edition of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (first published inYork in December 1759), followed on 17 April byJohn HallStevenson 's Two Lyric Epistles, which capitalized on Sterne's success. Dodsley chose not to advertise his publications in the Public Ledger, which was a rival of his and William I. Strahan's London Chronicle. Consequently, the first mention of Sterne's book in the new paper was through an advertisement for "Explanatory remarks upon the life and opinions of tristram shandy; wherein the Morals and Politics of this Piece are clearly laid open. Byjeremiah kunastrokius, m.d.", on 21 April 1760.5 Two days later, the Public Ledger featured a letter 3 Wilbur L. Cross, Life and Times ofLaurence Sterne (New York: Yale University Press, 1929), p. 228; Arthur H. Cash, Laurence Sterne: The Later Years (London and New York: Methuen, 1986) , p. 34. Cross's attribution of the Public Ledgerietters to Goldsmith is not documented (p. 233). 4 The Visitor, ed. William Dodd (London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1764...