Miscellanies (Carlyle)

''Critical and Miscellaneous Essays'' is the title of a collection of reprinted reviews and other magazine pieces by the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher 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", 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."

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, 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. 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.

Reception

American Unitarian minister James Freeman Clarke recalled in 1864 that "especially to the younger men, this new writer came, opening up unknown worlds of beauty and wonder. A strange influence, unlike any other, attracted us to his writing. Before we knew his name, we knew ''him''. We could recognize an article by our new author as soon as we opened the pages of the Foreign Review, Edinburgh, or Westminster, and read a few paragraphs." In the preface to the Boston edition, Emerson reminded American readers of "pages which, in the scattered anonymous sheets of the British magazines, spoke to their youthful mind with an emphasis that hindered them from sleep."

Richard Wagner referenced "Novalis" in his essay "On Poetry and Composition" (1879). Doctor and theosophist William Ashton Ellis quoted from "Novalis" in a lecture delivered at a meeting of the Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts on 3 February 1887.

List of essays

The following is a list of the contents of the ''Critical and Miscellaneous'' ''Essays'' as they appear in the ''Centenary Edition'' (originally published 1896–1899), being the standard edition of the works of Thomas Carlyle.

Volume I
* INTRODUCTION by Henry Duff Traill
* Jean Paul Friedrich Richter 827*# ''Edinburgh Review'', No. 91.
* State of German Literature 827*# ''Edinburgh Review'', No. 92.
* Life and Writings of Werner 828*# ''Foreign Review'', No. 1.
* Goethe's Helena 828*# ''Foreign Review'', No. 2.
* Goethe 828*# ''Foreign Review'', No. 3.
* Burns 828*# ''Edinburgh Review'', No. 96.
* The Life of Heyne 828*# ''Foreign Review'', No. 4.
*German Playwrights 829*# ''Foreign Review'', No. 6.
* Voltaire 829*# ''Foreign Review'', No. 6.
* Appendix I
** Fractions 823-1833**# The Tragedy of the Night-Moth
**# Cui Bono
**# Four Fables
**# The Sower's Song
**# Adieu
**# The Beetle
**# Today
**# Fortuna
* Appendix II
*# Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Review of Madame de Staël's ' Allemagne.' 830*## '' Fraser's Magazine'', Nos. 1 and 4.
*# Schiller, Goethe, and Madame de Staël [1832]
*## ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 26.
* Summary

Volume II
* Novalis 829*# ''Foreign Review'', No. 7.
* Signs of the Times 829*# ''Edinburgh Review'', No. 98.
* On History 830*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 10.
* Jean Paul Friedrich Richter Again 830*# ''Foreign Review'', No. 9.
* A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, Luther's Psalm [1831]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 12.
* Friedrich Schiller, Schiller [1831]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 14.
* Nibelungenlied, The Nibelungen Lied [1831]
*# ''Westminster Review'', No. 29.
* Early New High German literature, German Literature of the XIV. and XV. Centuries [1831]
*# ''Foreign Quarterly Review'', No. 16.
* William Taylor (man of letters), Taylor's Historic Survey of German Poetry [1831]
*# ''Edinburgh Review'', No. 105.
* Goethe's Portrait [1832]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 26.
* Death of Goethe [1832]
*# ''New Monthly Magazine'', No. 138.
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe bibliography, Goethe's Works [1832]
*# ''Foreign Quarterly Review'', No. 19.
* Appendix
*# The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, The Tale [1832]
*## ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 33.
*# Novelle [1832]
*## ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 34.
* Summary

Volume III
* Characteristics [1831]
*# ''Edinburgh Review'', No. 108.
* Biography [1832]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 27 (for April).
* James Boswell, Boswell's Life of Johnson [1832]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 28.
* Corn-Law Rhymer, Corn-Law Rhymes [1832]
*# ''Edinburgh Review'', No. 110.
* On History Again [1833]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 41.
* Denis Diderot, Diderot [1833]
*# ''Foreign Quarterly Review'', No. 22.
* Alessandro Cagliostro, Count Cagliostro [1833]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', Nos. 43, 44 (July and August).
* Death of Edward Irving [1835]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 61.
* Affair of the Diamond Necklace, The Diamond Necklace [1837]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', Nos. 85 and 86.
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, Mirabeau [1837]
** ''London and Westminster Review'', No. 8.
* Summary

Volume IV
* Parliamentary History of the French Revolution [1837]
*# ''London and Westminster Review'', No. 9.
* Sir Walter Scott [1838]
*# ''London and Westminster Review'', No. 12.
* Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs [1838]
*# ''London and Westminster Review'', No. 62.
* Chartism [1839]
* Petition on the Copyright Act 1842, Copyright Bill [1839]
*# ''The Examiner (1808–1886), The Examiner'', April 7, 1839.
* On the Sinking of the French ship Vengeur du Peuple, Vengeur [1839]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 115.
* Robert Baillie, Baillie the Covenanter [1841]
*# ''London and Westminster Review'', No. 72.
* José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia y Velasco, Dr. Francia [1843]
*# ''Foreign Quarterly Review'', No. 62.
* An Election to the Long Parliament [1844]
*# ''Fraser's Magazine'', No. 178.
* Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question, The Nigger Question [1849]
*# First printed in ''Fraser's Magazine'', December 1849; reprinted in the form of a separate Pamphlet, London, 1853.
* Two Hundred and Fifty Years Ago [1850]
*# Found recently in ''Leigh Hunt's Journal'', Nos. 1, 3, 6 (Saturday 7 December 1850 et seqq.). Said there to be 'from a Waste-paper Bag' of mine. Apparently some fraction of a certain ''History'' (Failure of a History) ''of James VI and I, James I.'', of which I have indistinct recollections. (''Note'' of 1857.)
* The Opera
** ''The Keepsake, Keepsake'' for 1852.
* Project of a National Exhibition of Scottish Portraits [1854]
*# Printed in ''Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland'', vol. i. part 3 (4to, Edinburgh, 1855).
* The Prinzenraub [1855]
** ''Westminster Review'', No. 123, January 1855.
* Inaugural Address at University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, 2 April 1866
* Summary

Volume V
* Reform Act 1867, Shooting Niagara: And After? [August 1867]
** Reprinted from ''Macmillan's Magazine'', for August 1867. With some additions and corrections.
* Latter Stage of the Franco-Prussian War, French-German War, 1870–71
** Summary
* Papers Collected for the First Time
** Montaigne
**# ''Edinburgh Encyclopædia'', vol. xiv.
** Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
**# ''Edinburgh Encyclopædia'', vol. xiv.
** Montesquieu
**# ''Edinburgh Encyclopædia'', vol. xiv.
** Jacques Necker, Necker
**# ''Edinburgh Encyclopædia'', vol. xv.
** The Netherlands
**# ''Edinburgh Encyclopædia'', vol. xv.
** William Pitt, Earl of Chatham
**# ''Edinburgh Encyclopædia'', vol. xvi.
** William Pitt the Younger, William Pitt, the Younger
**# ''Edinburgh Encyclopædia'', vol. xvi.
** Cruthers and Jonson; or the Outskirts of Life
*** ''Fraser's Magazine'', January 1831.
** Early Monarchy of Norway, Kings of Norway
**# Harald Fairhair, Harald Haarfagr
**# Eric Bloodaxe, Eric Blood-axe and Brothers
**# Hakon the Good
**# Harald Greycloak, Harald Greyfell and Brothers
**# Hakon Jarl
**# Olaf Tryggvason, Olaf Tryggveson
**# Reign of Olaf Tryggvason, Olaf Tryggveson
**# Earl#Scandinavia, Jarls Eric Hakonson, Eric and Sweyn Haakonsson, Svein
**# King Olaf the Thick-set's Viking Days
**# Reign of Olaf II of Norway, King Olaf the Saint
**# Magnus the Good and Others
**# Olaf the Peaceful, Olaf the Tranquil, Magnus Barefoot, and Sigurd the Crusader
**# Magnus the Blind, Harald Gille, Harald Gylle, and mutual Extinction of the Fairhair dynasty, Haarfagrs
**# Sverre of Norway, Sverrir and House of Sverre, Descendants, to Haakon the Old, Hakon the Old
**# Hakon the Old at Battle of Largs, Largs
**# Epilogue
** The Portraits of John Knox
** Index

Bibliography

*

Notes

References

External links

* iarchive:worksofthomascar26carliala/mode/2up, Volume I of ''Critical and Miscellaneous Essays'' at the Internet Archive
* iarchive:worksofthomascar27carliala/mode/2up, Volume II
* iarchive:worksofthomascar28carliala/mode/2up, Volume III
* iarchive:worksofthomascar29carl/mode/2up, Volume IV
* iarchive:worksofthomascar030carl/mode/2up, Volume V

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British essays
Essay collections
Essays about literature
Essays in literary criticism
Books of literary criticism
1838 books
Works by Thomas Carlyle
Chapman & Hall books
1838 essays