A SHANDEAN CHRONOLOGY

(Based on Theodore Baird, "The Time Scheme of Tristram Shandy and a Source," PMLA, 51 (1936), 803-820.)

1689. James Butler ("Trim") joins the army.
1690. Siege of Limerick (Capt. Shandy and Trim ill of flux).
1693. Trim wounded at the Battle of Landen (July 29). Trim's romance with the Beguine.
1694. Death of Mr. Wadman. Probable birth of young LeFever.
1695. Siege of Namur. Capt. Shandy wounded (July 27).
1697. Summer--Capt. Shandy and Trim go to London; Toby's wound tended at Walter's house.
1698. Toby purchases books on military architecture. At about this time the midwife begins her practice in the vicinity of Shandy Hall.
1699. Toby begins his study of projectiles but abandons it. Dinah married and got with child by coachman.
1701. Change in Toby's behavior. Trim proposes his project of conducting sieges. Toby and Trim go to Yorkshire, where they cultivate Toby's "rod and a half." Widow Wadman falls in love with Toby, but Toby heavily engaged in enacting battles until 1713.
1703. Trim builds model town for sieges.
1704. Costly lawsuit over the Ox-moor.
1706. Death of LeFever. Toby sends young Lefever to public school.
1712. Walter Shandy writes Life of Socrates (unpublished). Date (arbitrarily chosen) of the story of the King of Bohemia.
1713. Walter Shandy leaves his London business and resides at Shandy Hall in Yorkshire. Treaty of Utrecht brings an end to the War of Spanish Succession.
1714. Toby's "amours" with the Widow Wadman (lasting nine months). The novel ends.
1716. Walter Shandy writes dissertation on the word "Tristram."
1717. Billy LeFever joins troops of Prince Eugene. Walter goes to London "on a fool's errand."
1718. (March) The novel begins; Tristram Shandy begot. November 5--Tristram born (Dr. Slop attending) and baptized. November 6--Walter Shandy discovers mistake in his son's name, asks Yorick if it can be rectified. November 7--Toby, Walter, and Yorick attend learned dinner, discover that a child is not related to its mother.
1719. Walter Shandy receives 1000-pound legacy from Aunt Dinah. Death of Robert Shandy.
1721. (An error of Sterne's--it should be 1723). Young LeFever is penniless and writes Toby, who proposes him as tutor to Tristram.
1723. Susannah drops the window sash. Walter Shandy decides to put the boy into breeches.
1728. Uncle Toby preaches sermon on universal good will by allowing a fly to escape.
1741. Tristram goes to Europe with Mr. Noddy's eldest son.
1748. Death of Yorick.
1750. Yorick's lost sermon is found and preached in York Minster by a prebendary (Sterne).
1759. Tristram begins to write the novel (March 5). Vols. I & II published (December).
1762. Tristram goes to France to escape death.
1766. Tristram begins Volume IX (August 12).