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.

  • Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. From Edinburgh Review, June 1827.
  • State of German Literature. From Edinburgh Review, October 1827.
  • Life and Writings of Werner. From Foreign Review, January 1828.
  • Goethe's Helena. From Foreign Review, April 1828.
  • Goethe. From Foreign Review, July 1828.
  • Burns. From Edinburgh Review, December 1828.
  • The Life of Heyne. From Foreign Review, October 1828.
  • German Playwrights. From Foreign Review, January 1829.
  • Voltaire. From Foreign Review, April 1829.
  • Novalis. From Foreign Review, July 1829.
  • Signs of the Times. From Edinburgh Review, June 1829.
  • Jean Paul Friedrich Richter Again. From Foreign Review, January 1830.
  • On History. From Fraser's Magazine, November 1830.
  • Luther’s Psalm. From Fraser's Magazine, January 1831.
  • Schiller. From Fraser's Magazine, March 1831.
  • The Nibelungen Lied. From Westminster Review, July 1831.
  • German Literature of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. From Foreign Quarterly Review, October 1831.
  • Taylor's Historic Survey of German Poetry. From Edinburgh Review, March 1831.
  • Characteristics. From Edinburgh Review, December 1831.
  • Goethe’s Portrait. From Fraser's Magazine, March 1832.
  • Biography. From Fraser's Magazine, April 1832.
  • Boswell's Life of Johnson. From Fraser's Magazine, May 1832.
  • Death of Goethe. From New Monthly Magazine, June 1832.
  • Goethe's Works. From Foreign Quarterly Review, August 1832.
  • Corn-Law Rhymes. From Edinburgh Review, July 1832.
  • On History Again. From Fraser's Magazine, May 1833.
  • Diderot. From Foreign Quarterly Review, April 1833.
  • Count Cagliostro: In Two Flights. From Fraser's Magazine, July and August 1833.
  • Death of Edward Irving. From Fraser's Magazine, January 1835.
  • The Diamond Necklace. From Fraser's Magazine, January, February, and March 1837.
  • Mirabeau. From Westminster Review, January 1837.
  • Parliamentary History of the French Revolution. From Westminster Review, April 1837.
  • Sir Walter Scott. From Westminster Review, January 1838.
  • Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs. From Westminster Review, December 1838.
  • Petition on the Copyright Bill. From The Examiner, 7 April 1839.
  • On the Sinking of the Vengeur. From Fraser's Magazine, July 1839. First collected in the 1840 edition.
  • Baillie the Covenanter. From Westminster Review, January 1842. First collected in the 1847 edition.
  • Dr. Francia. From Foreign Quarterly Review, July 1843. First collected in the 1847 edition.
  • Election to the Long Parliament. From Fraser's Magazine, October 1844. First collected in the 1847 edition.
  • Two-Hundred-and-Fifty Years Ago: A Fragment About Duels. From Leigh Hunt's Journal, nos. 1, 3, and 6, 1850. First collected in the 1857 edition.
  • The Opera. From The Keepsake, 1852. First collected in the 1857 edition.
  • Project of a National Exhibition of Scottish Portraits. From Proceedings of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, 1855. First collected in the 1857 edition.
  • The Prinzenraub: A Glimpse of Saxon History. From Westminster Review, January 1855. First collected in the 1857 edition.[7][8]

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 (ed.). 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. Archived from the original on 13 March 2014. 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.
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