Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a nineteenth-century Scottish essayist,philosopher, and historian. Famous for his distinctively energetic style ofprose, he was considered by Ralph Waldo Emerson to be the ‘undoubted head ofEnglish letters’. His collected works run to thirty volumes, including theinfluential history The French Revolution (1837). Following hisappropriation by Nazi ideologues, Carlyle’s popularity waned in the early twentiethcentury, but David Gascoyne’s 1952 text anticipates a revival of Carlylestudies, presenting him as both a prophet and social commentator who cannot beclaimed by either the Left or the Right. In this work, Gascoyne aims toposition Carlyle alongside the most important writers of the nineteenth century,while simultaneously exploring Carlyle’s ‘message of special value’ to contemporaryreaders.