UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

Department of English Literature

The Carlyle Letters

The Duke-Edinburgh edition of The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle is one of the major editorial projects in Victorian studies of the last half-century. Previously a joint venture between Edinburgh University and Duke University, it is now a joint venture between Edinburgh University (where two of the senior editors, Ian Campbell and Aileen Christianson, are based) and Duke University Press, Durham, N Carolina, which publishes annually the volumes of this great edition. The third senior editor, David Sorensen, is based in St Joseph’s University, Philadelphia. The editors Jane Roberts, Liz Sutherland and Jonathan Wild are based at Edinburgh University and Brent Kinser at University of Western Carolina.

The edition began during the 1950s with a wide-ranging search for surviving manuscript letters, the number of which now exceeds 10,000. While the National Library of Scotland holds the world’s largest collection, there are many other major libraries with substantial Carlyle holdings. Since the publication of the first four volumes in 1970 the edition has produced fully-edited, annotated and indexed volumes to the highest standards. From volume 25 (covering 1850), these have been issued annually, the most recent being volume 34 (July - Dec. 1858) which came out in Nov. 2006. Volume 35 (January - October 1859) will appear in Nov. 2007. There are an estimated ten volumes still to come.

The scale of the edition is formidable, but so is the richness of the material. Both Carlyles were very gifted and prolific letter-writers; they had an immense circle of friends, family and acquaintance in Scotland, England, Europe and North America; through their letters they interacted with many of the outstanding writers, thinkers and political figures of their time. As the edition progresses, more and more material is coming to light which is being incorporated in The Carlyle Letters Online (www.carlyleletters.org). The Duke-Edinburgh print edition is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy in the UK and by the National Endowment for the Humanities in the US. It has been honoured and recognised both for its editing and its re-establishment of the Carlyles as pivotal figures in our understanding of the nineteenth century.

The Editors of the Carlyle Letters can be contacted at the following e-mail address carlyle@ed.ac.uk

or by post at:
The Carlyle Letters
University of Edinburgh
22a Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh
EH8 9LN

Telephone: 0131 650 4197
Fax: 0131 650 4197

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