Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (Carlyle)

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1838-1839) is the title of a collection of reprinted reviews and other magazine pieces by the Scottish philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle. Along with Sartor Resartus and The French Revolution it was one of the books that made his name. Its subject matter ranges from literary criticism (especially of German literature) to biography, history and social commentary. These essays have been described as "Intriguing in their own right as specimens of graphic and original nonfiction prose…indispensable for understanding the development of Carlyle's mind and literary career",[1] and the scholar Angus Ross has noted that the review-form displays in the highest degree Carlyle's "discursiveness, allusiveness, argumentativeness, and his sense of playing the prophet's part."[2]

Publication

Carlyle earned his living during the late 1820s and early 1830s as a reviewer and essayist, contributing to the Edinburgh Review, the Foreign Review, Fraser's Magazine, and other journals. As early as 1830 he thought about collecting these pieces in book form, but it was not until 1837 that he seriously prepared for such an edition,[3] when with the help of his friends Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Martineau and others, he entered into negotiations with the Boston publisher James Munroe. The Critical and Miscellaneous Essays were duly published by him in four volumes, the first two being issued on 14 July 1838, with a preface by Emerson, and the last two on 1 July 1839. 250 copies of the Munroe edition were sent to the London publisher James Fraser, who first sold them under his own imprint and then, in 1840, produced a second edition.[4][5] A third edition followed in 1847, and a fourth in 1857, each published by the firm of Chapman & Hall, and each incorporating additions from Carlyle's continuing journalistic output.[6]

Contents

The following is a list of the contents of the 1888 Chapman and Hall edition (4 vols. in 2). All articles were first collected in the 1838-1839 edition of Critical and Miscellaneous Essays unless otherwise stated.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Cumming, Mark, ed. (2004). The Carlyle Encyclopedia. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 107. ISBN 0838637922. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  2. ↑ Ross, Angus (1971). "Carlyle, Thomas". In Daiches, David. The Penguin Companion to Literature. Vol. 1: Britain and the Commonwealth. Harmondsworth: Penguin. p. 89. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  3. ↑ Cumming, Mark, ed. (2004). The Carlyle Encyclopedia. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 106. ISBN 0838637922. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  4. ↑ Sanders, Charles Richard; et al., eds. (1985). The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. Vol. 10: 1838. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. pp. 5–6, footnote 6. ISBN 0822306115. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  5. ↑ Gordan, John D., ed. (1953). Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882: Catalogue of an Exhibition from the Berg Collection. New York: New York Public Library. p. 10. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  6. ↑ Shepherd, R. H. (1881). The Bibliography of Carlyle. London: Elliot Stock. pp. 16, 19. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  7. ↑ Shepherd, R. H. (1881). The Bibliography of Carlyle. London: Elliot Stock. pp. 4–19. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  8. ↑ Bateson, F. W., ed. (1969). The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Vol. 3: 1800-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 654–655. Retrieved 3 July 2013.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/6/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.