The Carlyle Encyclopedia

The Carlyle Encyclopedia is the new standard, single-volume reference work on the lives and writings of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. Written by over fifty contributors from the United States, Scotland, England, Canada, and Germany, it offers detailed accounts of central topics in Carlyle studies and provides bibliographic citations which direct the reader's attention to a wide range of additional sources. The Carlyle Encyclopedia focuses primarily on Thomas Carlyle. It reflects the range of his interests and resists stereotyped impression of who he was and what he believed. It covers Carlyle's entire life, without privileging any particular work or period, and locates Carlyle in his time and place, in the context of a rich and challenging age. The Carlyle Encyclopedia also gives a balanced assessment of Jane Welsh Carlyle, which avoids either belittling her or overestimating her achievement. It avoids the reductive and contradictory stereotypes of her which were offered by early biographers of Thomas Carlyle and offers instead a study of her varied friendships and her trenchant observations on contemporary life. The Carlyle Encyclopedia will interest a variety of readers who concern themselves with literature, social history, the history of ideas, Victorian culture, and Scottish studies.