‘twil have company’: A Newly Identified Copy of Sterne’s <i>A Political Romance</i> (1759)

This note identifies a previously unknown copy of Sterne’s A Political Romance (1759), the first such discovery in over fifty years. It traces the provenance of this copy to Sterne’s relationship with the Egerton family and more particularly to Henry Egerton (1729–95), or ‘Henry the great’ as Sterne dubbed him. This reinforces the case for placing Egerton among Sterne’s learned and most trusted friends in the vicinity of York at the very outset of his literary career.