Alan and Mary McQueen Simpson introduce this selection from Jane Carlyle's letters with an assessment of her character, her marriage to 'my Man of Genius' Thomas Carlyle and her art of letter writing. The letters are arranged in sections corresponding to the main themes in her life. The selection begins with the strange, prolonged courtship; portraits, conscious and unconscious, of herself and her husband follow; much is about running the Chelsea house at 5 Cheyne Row, protecting Carlyle from noise, neighbours and bedbugs; a whole section is devoted to a Dickensian succession of mostly awful...

Widely recognised as one of the greatest female letter writers in English, Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801 1866) possessed a famous sense of wit and irony, which, together with her keen observational skills, made her an important literary figure in her own right. This three-volume set of her letters, published in 1883 and annotated throughout by her husband Thomas Carlyle, represents a fine example of the letter-writing genre. The publication of the letters made a significant contribution to a growing acceptance and critical recognition of this often dismissed literary form. Volume 1 (from 1834 to...

Widely recognised as one of the greatest female letter writers in English, Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801 1866) possessed a famous sense of wit and irony, which, together with her keen observational skills, made her an important literary figure in her own right. This three-volume set of her letters, published in 1883 and annotated throughout by her husband Thomas Carlyle, represents a fine example of the letter-writing genre. The publication of the letters made a significant contribution to a growing acceptance and critical recognition of this often dismissed literary form. In Volume 2 (from 1847...

Widely recognised as one of the greatest female letter writers in English, Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801 1866) possessed a famous sense of wit and irony, which, together with her keen observational skills, made her an important literary figure in her own right. This three-volume set of her letters, published in 1883 and annotated throughout by her husband Thomas Carlyle, represents a fine example of the letter-writing genre. The publication of the letters made a significant contribution to a growing acceptance and critical recognition of this often dismissed literary form. Volume 3 covers the...