Gissing’s career, which spanned the period of about 1877 to his death in 1903, was characterized by prodigious output (almost a novel a year in the early days), modest recognition, and modest income. He wrote of poverty, socialism, class differences, social reform, and later on, about the problems of women and industrialization. His best known works are New Grub Street (1891) and Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903), rich sources of social commentary that reflect a literary transition from the Victorian to the modern period.
For many years, the only Gissing letters available to the public were those in the modest selection of letters to his family published in 1927. Now the editors have culled widely scattered sources—private and public collections, journals, newspapers, memoirs, biographies, and sales catalogs—to gather and organize Gissing’s correspondence, including letters to him, and to provide an editorial context.
The years 1892-1895 saw an increase in the bulk and scope of Gissing’s literary production, coinciding with his new and cordial association with publishers Bullen and Lawrence. During this period, the partners published Denzil Quarrier, The Odd Women, In the Year of Jubilee, ad Eve’s Ransom, while A. and C. Black brought out Born in Exile. Gissing’s correspondence with his publishers, some of which is printed here for the first time, is matched in significance by his letters to his literary agent William Morris Colles and to editors such as Clement Shorter, who were instrumental in turning Gissing to the short story. His domestic life remained grim: his unfortunate marriage ruled out the possibility of satisfactory social relationships, and his anxiety over the care of his son Walter was eased only by sending the infant away to stay with strangers. New friends, especially Clara Collet and Edward Clodd, were a precious asset—in their presence he could be his better self, a highly cultured, joy-loving individual whose work was finding greater favor with the public.
George Herbert Mead, one of America’s most important and influential philosophers, a founder of pragmatism, social psychology, and symbolic interactionism, was also a keen observer of American culture and early modernism. In the period from the 1870s to 1895, Henry Northrup Castle maintained a correspondence with family members and with Mead—his best friend at Oberlin College and brother-in-law—that reveals many of the intellectual, economic, and cultural forces that shaped American thought in that complex era. Close friends of John Dewey, Jane Addams, and other leading Chicago Progressives, the author of these often intimate letters comments frankly on pivotal events affecting higher education, developments at Oberlin College, Hawaii (where the Castles lived), progressivism, and the general angst that many young intellectuals were experiencing in early modern America.
The letters, drawn from the Mead-Castle collection at the University of Chicago, were collected and edited by Mead after the tragic death of Henry Castle in a shipping accident in the North Sea. Working with his wife Helen Castle (one of Henry’s sisters), he privately published fifty copies of the letters to record an important relationship and as an intellectual history of two progressive thinkers at the end of the nineteenth century. American historians, such as Robert Crunden and Gary Cook, have noted the importance of the letters to historians of the late nineteenth century.
The letters are made available here using the basic Mead text of 1902. Additional insights into the connection between Mead, John Dewey, Henry and Harriet Castle, and Hawaii’s progressive kindergarten system are provided by the foundation’s executive director Alfred L. Castle. Marvin Krislov, president of Oberlin College, has added additional comments on the importance of the letters to understanding the intellectual relationship that flourished at Oberlin College.
Published with the support of the Samuel N. and Mary Castle Foundation.
Four occurrences pervade this new collection of letters: the decline and death of Thomas Carlyle’s mother; Thomas’s continued research of Frederick the Great; the Carlyles’s struggle against the perpetual irritation of urban noise, particularly roosters, which led to the construction of a soundproof room; and the Carlyles’ introduction to Talbotypes, an early form of photography. While domestic concerns pervade the volume, it also provides the usual insight into societal and political culture of the 1850s through the couple’s interaction with influential figures, including Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Delia Bacon.
Volume 29 resumes themes begun in earlier letters: Thomas's flirtatious exchanges with Lady Ashburton, the recent death of his mother, the improvement of his soundproof room, and his struggle to pursue his research for Frederick the Great. Other notable items include Dickens's dedication of Hard Times to Thomas and Thomas's support of G. H. Lewes during the scandal over Lewes's affair with George Eliot. The highlight of the volume is a passionate and humorous letter by Jane, subtitled "Budget of a Femme Incomprise," in which she defends the rising cost of running their house.
In volume 31, which covers the year 1856, the Carlyles continue a rigorous correspondence, depicting and examining Victorian London as well as its inhabitants. They also return to their native Scotland and offer details of their travels in the Scottish Lowlands and Highlands.
Volume 30 illuminates Jane's inner life with the help of two previously unpublished documents: her complete journals from the years 1845-1852 and 1855-1856 and an interview conducted by her friend Ellen Twiselton that chronicles a painful period in the Carlyle marriage. Also included here is Jane's story, "The Simple Story of My Own First Love," and discussions of her complicated relations with feminists, whom she admired yet distrusted. Meanwhile, Thomas is mired in his remarkable study of Frederick the Great, a figure he reveres as an exemplar of "veracity" in a shallow age—an image of Carlyle himself.
Volume 32 covers the period from October 1856 to July 1857. During this time, Jane is beset with a succession of illnesses, while Thomas prepares the first two books of his massive History of Frederick the Great for publication and labors on his publisher's proposed new "cheap" edition of his works. The "Indian mutiny," the bombardment of Canton, and a dissolution of the British Parliament also feature in this volume. In addition to its 168 richly annotated letters, many published here for the first time, volume 32 includes two appendixes: (1) advertisements in the Athenaeum for the "cheap edition" from December 1856 to December 1858 and (2) a transcription of Thomas Carlyle's marginal comments on a borrowed copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh.
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