The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Vol. 33: August 1857- June 1858 (Collected Letters of Thomas & Jane Welsh Carlyle) - Hardcover

Thomas Carlyle; Jane Welsh Carlyle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822366479 ISBN 13: 9780822366478

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2005

Synopsis

At the opening of volume 33, which covers letters written between August 1857 and June 1858, Jane Welsh Carlyle is in Scotland visiting relatives and Thomas Carlyle is at home in Chelsea, working daily under an awning in the backyard and struggling with the proofs of the first two volumes of History of Frederick the Great as well as with research for future volumes. Thomas was disturbed both by the Panic of 1857 and by news of the Indian Mutiny and the behavior of British troops in that part of the empire. He was fiercely critical of the politicians and civil servants who trumpeted the merits of "progress," "democracy," and "civilization" while governing India with often brutal and repressive policies. Meanwhile, Jane was reading an early work by a new writer named George Eliot, to whom she wrote a fan letter that began "Dear Sir," unaware that Eliot was in fact Mary Ann Evans, whom they had entertained in their home. In May, Thomas observed a gang of navvies, or day laborers, with picks and shovels, digging a foundation and uncovering ancient, gigantic bones. At the suggestion of paleontologist Richard Owen, the bones of the extinct Pliocene mammals-including a whale-were sold to a dealer to be ground into powder. During the same month, the separation of Charles Dickens and his wife, the former Catherine Hogarth, was the subject of many a conversation.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael K. Goldberg is Professor of English, University of British Columbia. He has written widely on the 19th century including "Carlyle and Dickens" (Georgia, 1972). Joel J. Brattin is Assistant Professor in the Humanities at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Mark Engel is a student of philosophy, a professional editor, and an independent scholar.

Sorensen is Associate Professor of English at St. Joseph's University.

Aileen Christianson is senior lecturer in the Department of English Literature, University of Edinburgh.

Alison Lumsden is a research fellow in the Department of English Literature, University of Aberdeen.

Review:

"[N]otable not only for its editorial thoroughness but also for offering hitherto unpublished material."
--Susan Morgan, "Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900"

"[A] scrupulously edited, monumental edition. . . . Neurotic, complaining, self-absorbed and repetitive both Carlyles may be in their letters, but they are a pair entirely "sui generis," both in their way endowed with genius, and no better observers existed of Victorian London life, from that of the richest aristocrats to that of the poorest foreign refugees."
--Rosemary Ashton, "Times Literary Supplement"

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0822366479
• ISBN 13: 9780822366478
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 308
• Editor: Ian Campbell, Aileen Christianson, Sheila McIntosh, David Sorensen