Chapter 1 - Hands

Summary

This chapter reveals Sterne theorising his own experimentation with the visual appearance of the novel through images of the hand and handwriting. It measures the extent of Sterne’s innovation with the typographic manicule and his representation of script in print, comparing his innovations with those of Samuel Richardson a decade earlier while identifying the first known instance of printed strikethrough. Sterne inscribed his work with innovative examples of real and fictional handwriting, signing each copy of his novel and commissioning an original woodcut device to create the strikethrough. The chapter explores Sterne’s use of existing print practices or processes of book production in unusual and surprising ways. It establishes Sterne’s position in the print shop and his desire for his works to have specific material attributes, identifying also his anxiety over the potential invasion of his copyright. In revealing the author’s attempts to control every aspect of book production and his engagement with copyright debates, this chapter positions Sterne as a book designer well versed in codices from multiple disciplines and their varied modes of presenting printed data.