Henry Loving and Other East India Connections in Sterne’s Subscription List

Although several recent efforts have reduced the number of unidentified or uncertainly identified subscribers to the works of Laurence Sterne from 1760 to 1769, more than a few entries remain mysterious, and this despite the monumental achievement of the annotated list in the ninth volume of the Florida Edition. This note is an attempt to reduce the number of unknown subscribers by tracing the connection between subscribers like the rather obscure Henry Loving and the coterie of East India directors and associates who frequently socialised at the home of Commodore William and Mrs Anne James in the late 1760s, as did Laurence Sterne.