Author Description

This is the first time that Thomas Carlyle's remarkable The French Revolution: A History has been published in a comprehensive scholarly form. The edition features an abundance of new critical features, including a critical text that presents the edition much as it appeared in the first edition of 1837, but with a detailed record of the emendations that Carlyle made in subsequent versions during his lifetime. These volumes also contain a variety of scholarly aids--literary, textual, historical, and photographic--to render The French Revolution more approachable and readable to twenty-first century readers. The edition takes seriously Carlyle's claim to have produced a history of the Revolution that is rooted in his primary French sources. The extensive annotations vividly testify to his deep engagement in a wide array of histories, pamphlets, memoirs, and biographies. The notes not only demonstrate his complex method of history, but they also shed fresh light on his artistry and his rich use of language. For the first time, readers will be provided with numerous samples of engravings that Carlyle used from Chamfort's Tableaux historiques and other sources to visualize the 'Flame Drama,' as it was conceived by revolutionary artists and printers. The appendices will also include an annotated version of Carlyle's essay, 'On the Sinking of the Vengeur' (1839), in which he offers a detailed response to controversy surrounding the events that occurred during the naval battle between France and Britain on 'the Glorious First of June,' 1794; an image and transcription of an unpublished MS holograph excerpt from The French Revolution located in the Harry Ransom Center, Texas; and a copy of a corrected proof of 'The Feast of Pikes' held in the Forster Collection of the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum.