Stephen Croft was the financial backer of the Irish novelist, Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) and spent most of his adult career in Yorkshire, becoming Vicar of Coxwold and a Prebendary of York Minster. Sterne’s most famous novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy was first published in York in 1759 (vols. 1 & 2) and in 1761 (vols. 3 & 4). Sterne was also painted by Reynolds in 1760 (London, National Portrait Gallery, Mannings op.cit 2000, no. 1711, fig. 514).

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