Literary adaptation – sometimes known as ‘literary afterlife’ or ‘fan fiction’ – has thrived across all periods of history. From the Harry Potter craze to fan-fiction sites such as Archive of Our Own, modern-day readers have imaginatively immersed themselves in the fiction they read, giving it alternative life with sequels, fresh adventures, and even merchandise.

Literary adaptation boomed in the eighteenth century in Britain, and beyond, as new types of fiction – especially the emerging novel – offered more opportunities for readerly immersion and recreation.

Many of what we might now consider ‘canonical’ works experienced adaptation in ways that might strike us as irreverent or extreme – and which might make us question how and why we view some works and authors as ‘canonical’ at all.

Enormously popular publications such as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe inspired ‘Robinsonades’ from the 1720s onwards – even to the present day. Samuel Richardson’s highly successful Pamela sparked a craze that saw continuations, paintings, illustrations and plays feed the popular enthusiasm for this novel and its characters.

Laurence Sterne’s work encountered the most diverse and imaginative examples of adaptation in the period. His two major novels, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–67) and A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768), were hugely successful from their first appearance. Their characters, scenes, motifs and ideas inspired afterlives in forms as varied as pamphlets, novelistic sequels, plays, paintings, book illustrations, poems, songs, and material objects.

Literary scholarship has extensively explored many examples of Sterneana and what they tell us about the literary, social, and even political cultures of the day – but several avenues remain under-explored.

The Networks of Reception project enriches the story of how Sterne’s work was read, consumed and recycled through exploring Sterneana and its wider significance in contemporary newspapers and magazines, a hitherto neglected area of research. The popular press in the eighteenth century provided a key location for the circulation of imaginary afterlives, contributing to the emergence of celebrity culture – in which Laurence Sterne was a major figure – and to the dissemination of literary works and creative methods for responding to them.

Sterneana manifests in eighteenth-century newspapers and magazines in critical reviews, fragmentary imitations, borrowed character names, passing references, allusions, and much more besides. Networks of Reception gathers these fragmentary and widely dispersed strands, using traditional library archival research and digital resources, to cement a picture of Sterne’s reception not only in the British press, but also in Europe, especially France and Eastern Europe.

The differences and the links between these patterns of critical and creative reception help us to understand how Sterne’s work was read and reinterpreted, but also what Sterneana reveals about celebrity culture, adaptive processes, and the early emergence of ‘product branding’.