Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her Victorian World: A Story of Love, Work, Marriage, and Friendship

Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her Victorian World: A Story of Love, Work, Marriage, and Friendship

by Kathy Chamberlain
Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her Victorian World: A Story of Love, Work, Marriage, and Friendship

Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her Victorian World: A Story of Love, Work, Marriage, and Friendship

by Kathy Chamberlain

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Overview

“Intelligent, witty, thoroughly engaging . . . the most fascinating biography I have read in years.” —The Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
She was one of the all-time great letter writers, according to Virginia Woolf, but as the wife of Victorian literary celebrity Thomas Carlyle, Jane Welsh Carlyle has been much overlooked. In this “hugely satisfying” new biography (The Spectator), Kathy Chamberlain brings Jane out of her husband’s shadow, focusing on Carlyle as a remarkable woman and writer in her own right.
 
Caught between her own literary aspirations and Victorian society’s oppression of women, Jane Welsh Carlyle hoped to move beyond domestic life and become a respected published writer. As she and her husband moved in exclusive London literary circles, mingling with noted authors, poets, and European revolutionaries, Carlyle created and reported to her correspondents on her rich, rewarding life in her Chelsea home—until her husband’s infatuation with a wealthy, imposing aristocratic society hostess threw her life into chaos. Through dedicated research and unparalleled access to Jane Welsh Carlyle’s private correspondence, Chamberlain presents an elegant portrait of an extraordinary woman.
 
“Sparkles with the wit and intelligence of the subject herself . . . If you think, as I originally did, that you have no particular interest in the life of Jane Carlyle, read this—you will be captivated.” —Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lucy by the Sea
 
“Compelling . . . illuminates the outwardly decorous but often inwardly tempestuous lives of Victorian women.” —The New Yorker
 
“Chamberlain, Jane’s latest and incomparably best biographer . . . gives us, at last, a Jane Carlyle who seems thrillingly alive.” —Christian Science Monitor

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781468314212
Publisher: ABRAMS, Inc.
Publication date: 09/01/2022
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 560
Sales rank: 915,152
File size: 8 MB

About the Author

Kathy Chamberlain taught English for over thirty years at the City University of New York. She has given lectures on Jane Welsh Carlyle at the CUNY Graduate Center and at conferences in the US and UK, and has published numerous essays about Virginia Woolf and Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Table of Contents

Image Sources 8

Introduction 11

1 The Needle and the Pen 18

2 The Servants: "A most important-a most fearful item in our female existence!" 37

3 Friends and Conflicts 58

4 The Drama of 1844 74

5 What Should a Woman Be and Do? 86

6 Shaken All to Bits 101

7 "My I-ity" 123

8 Crisis in Nice 137

9 A Fine Experiment 153

10 Seaforth House 170

11 "What Is To Come Next?" 190

12 "Threatening Shipwreck" 212

13 Breaking Out 235

14 "Such Shifting Scenes-Such Incongruities" 255

15 A Green and Pleasant Idyll 274

16 Sister Woman / Brother Husband 285

17 Changes 309

18 A Dash at the Wall 337

Epilogue: A Last Word 362

Note to Reapers 365

Notes 366

Acknowledgments 385

Index 387

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