Carlyle's "solacing process of writing"

Chris R. Vanden Bossche, Professor of English, University of Notre Dame

[Home —> Authors —> Thomas Carlyle —> Works —> Carlyle and the Search for Authority]

[Chapter 6, note 3, of the author's Carlyle and the Search for Authority, which the Ohio State University Press published in 1991. It appears in the Victorian web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright. indicates a link to material not in the original print version. GPL]

Examples abound. About midway through "Edward Irving," he writes that although the manuscript should probably be "burnt when done," he will continue with it because it calms and soothes him (307). After finishing "Lord Jeffrey," he writes "I must carefully endeavour to find out some new work for myself" (341). But the compulsion to narrate was so strong that after writing that he has "no wish or need to record" Jane Carlyle's death, he goes on to do so (1.64).

Contents last modified 26 October 2001