The Carlyles; A Biography of Thomas and Jane Carlyle
London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1971. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. ix, [1], 186 pages. Frontis illustration. Illustrations. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. Some page and edge soiling noted. DJ has some wear and soiling and is price clipped. Includes List of Illustrations, Preface; The Father, The Son, The Friend, Jane Baillie Welsh; The Meeting; First Movement in Courtship; Second Movement; Third Movement; Hopes at Comely Bank; Despair at Craigenputtock; A Sojourn in London; The Retreat to Craigenputtock; The Decision; Cheyne Row, the Catastrophe; The Lectures to London Society; A Dazzling Prospect; Carlyle and his Contemporaries; Restlessness; Death of Mrs Welsh; Past and Present; Aspects of Life with Carlyle; The Fascination of Jane Welsh Carlyle; The Battle against Noise; Darkening of the Scene: Lady Ashburton; Domestic Help and Domestic Economy; A Pleasant Task; Carlyle as Traveller and Visitor; Tragedy; Calamity, Sunshine, De Profundis. John Stewart Collis has spent many years studying the life, work, and character of Carlyle and Jane Welsh, and he has successes in doing full justice to this intellectual giant and his wife. This is a unique biography, for it is the only one to put Carlyle's complex character in the context of his important relationship with Jane Welsh. Inspired by the frustrations of writer's block and the vagaries of modern romance, the result is a surprising combination of tremendous heart and urbane, sophisticated, mordantly funny storytelling. Collis's first book, a biography of George Bernard Shaw, was published in 1925, followed by biographies of Havelock Ellis, Strindberg, Tolstoy, the Carlyles and Columbus. John Stewart Collis (6 February 1900 – 2 March 1984) was an Irish biographer, rural author, and pioneer of the ecology movement. He is known for his book The Worm Forgives the Plough based on his wartime experience working in the Land Army in the Second World War. Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a British historian, satirical writer, essayist, translator, philosopher, mathematician, and teacher. In his book On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (1841), he argued that the actions of the "Great Man" play a key role in history, claiming that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men". Other major works include The French Revolution: A History, 3 vols. (1837) and The History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, 6 vols. (1858–65). His 1837 history of the French Revolution was the inspiration for Charles Dickens's 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities, and remains popular today. The influence on American literature of his 1836 Sartor Resartus, a novel both satirical and philosophical, has been described as "difficult to overstate". A noted polemicist, Carlyle coined the term "the dismal science" for economics, in his essay "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question", which satirically advocated for the reintroduction of slavery to the West Indies to highlight his perceived hypocrisy of British abolitionists' indifference to domestic child-labor and slave-like working conditions in contemporary factories. He also wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. In mathematics, he is known for the Carlyle circle, a method used in quadratic equations and for developing ruler-and-compass constructions of regular polygons. Carlyle married Jane Welsh in 1826. Their marriage proved to be one of the most famous, well documented, and unhappy of literary unions. Carlyle would have preferred that no biography of him was written, but when he heard that his wishes would not be respected and several people were waiting for him to die before they published, he relented and supplied his friend James Anthony Froude with many of his and his wife's papers. Carlyle's essay about his wife was included in Reminiscences, published shortly after his death by Froude, who also published the Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle annotated by Carlyle himself. Froude's Life of Carlyle was published over 1882–84. The frankness of this book was unheard of by the usually respectful standards of 19th-century biographies of the period. Condition: Good / Very Good.
Keywords: Thomas Carlyle, Jane Welsh Carlyle, Craigenputtock, Lady Ashburton, Chenye Row, Froude, Edward Irving, Geraldine Jewsbury, John Ruskin, John Sterling
ISBN: 0283978058
[Book #83086]
Price: $50.00