The Rubenstein Carlyle Collection

The Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle Papers is a digital archive of “Correspondence, fragments, and notes” created from manuscript materials now held at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Although some of the these documents have been published in both the Collected Letters and the Carlyle Letters Online, many of them have not. Users of the CLO are able for the first time to interact with both the holograph images and the edited transcriptions of this remarkable archive.

1812 – 1840

TC to John Ferguson, 2 July 1820

TC to John Taylor, 20 September 1824

TC to Basil Montagu, 15 October 1825

TC to John A. Carlyle, 21 February 1826

TC to John A. Carlyle, 30 May 1826

TC to Thomas Murray, 20 June 1826

JWC to Anna D.B. Montagu, 7 May 1827

JWC to Anna D.B. Montagu, 2 September 1827

TC to Robert Jeffrey of Girthon, 18 September 1832

TC to Margaret Scott, 10 April 1838 [not yet pbd.]

TC to James Fraser, 9 December 1839

Richard Monckton Milnes to John Mitchell Kemble, 6 February 1840 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Catherine Gore, 8 December 1840

1841 – 1850

TC to JWC, 29 April 1841

TC to Archibald Prentice, 9 May 1842

JWC to Anna Brownell Jameson, 7 October 1842

JWC to Anna Brownell Jameson, 24 October 1842

TC to [Alexander John] Scott, 13 April 1843 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Basil Montagu, 19 May 1843

TC to James Anthony Froude, 8 June 1843 [not yet pbd.]

TC to B.W. Procter, 2 October 1843

TC to Lord Mahon, 21 April 1844

TC to B.W. Procter, 25 April 1844

TC to [William Hall], 26 March 1844

TC to [Edward Chapman?], 17 January 1845

TC to Eliza Fletcher, 9 May 1845

JWC to Anna Brownell Jameson, 17 June 1846

TC to UC, 23 October 1845 [not yet pbd.]

JWC to Anna Brownell Jameson, 4 December 1845

TC to John Kenyon, 13 April 1847

TC to William Hanna, 22 November 1847

TC to Henry M’Cormac, 16 May 1848

TC to Samuel Laurence, 14 June 1848

TC to John Stores Smith, 14 October 1848

TC to JWC, 10 August 1849

TC to W.E. Forster, 25 June 1849

TC to Charlotte Williams Wynn, 27 November 1849 [not yet pbd.]

TC to [William Maccall?], 27 February 1850

TC to Charles Kingsley, 1 March 1850

TC to George Johnston, 23 August 1850

TC to UC, 6 December 1850 [not yet pbd.]

1851 – 1862

TC to Thomas Woolner, 10 June 1851

TC to Thomas Erskine, 5 January 1852

TC to Henry Larkin, 29 March 1852

TC to J.W. Parker, 16 August 1852

TC to JWC, 4 September 1852

JWC to Lady Stanley, 13 September 1852

TC to Richard Owen, 9 May 1853

TC to Arthur Helps, 18 June 1853

TC to Anna Blackwell, 30 October 1853

TC to John A. Carlyle, 27 June 1855

TC to [Alicia A. Moore], 10 November 1855

TC to Henry Larkin, 14 December 1856

TC to James Aitken, 29 May 1857

JWC to Lady Stanley, 20 December 1857

JWC to Lady Stanley, 1857 [not yet pbd.]

JWC to Lady Stanley, late October 1858

TC to James Ballantine, 11 October 1858

TC to James Ballantine, 22 November 1858

TC to UC, 1 February 1859 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Henry Larkin, 26 [25] March 1859

TC to Chapman and Hall, 10 July 1859 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Henry Larkin, 25 August 1859 [not yet pbd.]

JWC to Lady Stanley, 18 September 1859

JWC to Anne Gilchrist, 10 November 1859

TC to Henry Larkin, 24 December 1859 [not yet pbd.]

JWC to Lady Stanley, 1859?

Ralph Waldo Emerson to TC, 25 April 1860 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Robert Farie, 27 July 1860

JWC to Lady Stanley, 8 August 1860

JWC to Lady Stanley, 20 August 1860

JWC to Lady Stanley, September 1860 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Thomas Erskine, 4 September 1860 [not yet pbd.]

JWC to Lady Stanley, 30 August 1860

JWC to Ann Chamberlayne, 25 December 1861

TC to UC, 6 May 1861 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Henry Larkin, 1 January 1862

JWC to Maria Chamberlayne, 21 August 1862

JWC to Henrietta Stanley, 20 September 1862 [not yet pbd.]

JWC to Lady Stanley, 23 September 1862

JWC to Lady Stanley, 25 September 1862

TC to Robert Harrison, 1 November 1862

TC to UC, 23 December 1862

1862 – 1881

JWC to Lady Stanley, late January 1863

TC to Messrs Hutchinson, Wine Merchants, 20 July 1863

TC to Moncure Conway, 20 August 1863 [not yet pbd.]

JWC to Maria Chamberlayne, 23 [22] September 1863

TC to Henry Larkin, 19 June 1864

TC to Henry Larkin, 29 August 1864 [not yet pbd.]

JWC to Maria Chamberlayne, 4 January 1865

TC to Henry Larkin, 13 April 1865

TC to Eliza Warren, 4 July 1865

TC to Eliza Warren, 4 July 1865 [not yet pbd.]

JWC to Lady Stanley, 29 July 1865

TC to Eliza Warren, 21 August 1865

JWC to Lady Stanley, 9 December 1865

TC to W.H. Doeg, 23 January 1866

TC, Pass to His Rector’s Installation Address, 26 March 1866 [not yet pbd.]

TC to William Maccall, 2 July 1866

TC to Frederick Chapman, 2 July 1866 [not yet pbd.]

TC to John Reuben Thompson, 10 September 1866

TC to Sarah Warren, 26 December 1866 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Sarah Warren, 21 January 1867

TC to Marianne Alford, 25 October 1867 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Marianne Alford, 28 October 1867 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Sarah Warren, 28 March 1868 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Lady Alford, 31 October 1867

TC to Lady Alford, 4 December 1867

TC to UC, 9 December 1869 [not yet pbd.]

TC to James Dowie, 10 July 1868

TC to Sarah Warren, 10 September 1868 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Sarah Warren, 17 September 1868 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Frederic Chapman, 22 September 1868 [not yet pbd.]

TC to F. Fisher, Esq, 2 March 1869 [not yet pbd.]

TC to Joseph Edgar Boehm, 4 November 1874 [not yet pbd.]

TC to UC, 4 August 1875 [not yet pbd.]

TC to C.H. Hart, 21 December 1875 [not yet pbd.]

Miscellaneous/Undated

John Forrester to UC, 5 September 1893

David A. Wilson to Dr. Murray, 15 April 1922

Alexander Carlyle to Mr. Catford, 13 November 1927

Walter S. Landor to TC

TC to Jean Carlyle Aitken

TC to Sarah Warren

TC to Henry Larkin

JWC to Mrs. Marsh

TC to UC

Joseph Mazzini to UC

Notes from TC to Henry Larkin

MS fragments (2) from Frederick the Great

MS fragment from Shooting Niagara (1867)

MS fragment from Shooting Niagara

MS fragment from Shooting Niagara

MS fragment from Shooting Niagara

MS fragment from Shooting Niagara

Photograph of TC’s attic study at 5 Cheyne Row

These three details from Robert Scott Tait’s painting A Chelsea Interior (1857). Tait’s method, which included preliminary photographs of the scene taken with his “malodourous Photographing Apparatus,” and his constant “fluffing about” (TC to JWC, 26 July 1857) was an unsurprising source of irritation for the Carlyles. In the details, Thomas is depicted standing in front of his drawing-room fireplace loading his pipe. He was an inveterate smoker, and Jane sometimes made him lie on his back in order to blow his smoke up the flue in an attempt to save the house from being enveloped in a tobacco haze. Jane sits pensively at her table looking upon her devoted and beloved Nero, who sits on the couch watching his master. The table and the couch are now joined by the painting, which hangs above their piano, in the drawing room of their home at Cheyne Row, London.