CARLYLE, Thomas.

£45,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington

The French Revolution: A History. First edition, bound for presentation and inscribed by the author to his mother-in-law on the title page of the first volume: "To Mrs. John Welsh. Liverpool. T.C. London, June 1837". A leaf of the original manuscript, closely written across two sides, is bound in facing the title. Presentation copies of Carlyle's magnum opus are extremely scarce.The History was published in May 1837. Grace Welsh (1782-1842), the mother of Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801-1866), is recorded as visiting the couple in London at the end of May, whereupon Thomas removed himself to rural Scotland.Grace had not approved of her daughter's choice to marry Carlyle in October 1826. In Jane's own words, writing to him without her mother's knowledge made her "as nervous as if I were committing a murder" (ODNB). Grace leased the pair a modest home in Edinburgh shortly after their marriage, but relations between mother and daughter remained fraught throughout their lives. While writing the History, Carlyle observed of one maternal visit that "Jane and her mother cannot live together" (quoted in Ireland, p. 151). The manuscript leaf preserves the text for pages 58-62 of Volume III, discussing the aftermath of the September Massacres of 1792. It runs to 45 lines and contains several corrections and crossed-through sections, including some two and a half lines not printed on page 59. The final manuscript of the History was largely destroyed after publication, only fragments remaining.

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