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What was A Political Romance about?
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Laurence Sterne
Novelist Laurence Sterne, detail of an oil painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1760; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
A Political Romance (later titled The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat) was a Swiftian satire written by Laurence Sterne in 1759.1
The work was created to support his dean during a local church squabble and functioned as a critique of the dignitaries within the spiritual courts. Because the satire targeted these powerful churchmen, it caused significant embarrassment, and the book was ultimately burned at their demand. While this event cost Sterne his chances for further clerical advancement, it prompted him to focus on his writing, leading him to begin his famous novel, Tristram Shandy.1