As Samuel Johnson noticed there has always been something 'odd' about Tristram Shandy - a
literary autobiography that begins with the narrator's conception and ends before his birth.
However while time has been recognized as being central to the narrative strategies of
Tristram Shandy the role of time in the novel has rarely been examined in any substantive
detail. This book offers the first extended consideration of the representation of time in
Tristram Shandy . Its central argument is that the 'oddness' of the novel's formal and
typographical experimentation fragmentation of narrative sequence destabilization of the
autobiographical subject and emphasis on textual materiality derives from a radical conception
of temporality. In showing how Tristram Shandy conceives of temporality as an alterity that
disrupts both subjectivity and representation this study not only provides a theoretical
commentary on the novel's temporal experimentation but also demonstrates the continuing
importance of Tristram Shandy for the critical theory of fiction.
