As a writer and historian, Thomas Carlyle stands as one of the dominant figures of Victorian literature. Growing up in Scotland, he was a shy boy who studied for the ministry and the law before deciding to embark on a career as a writer. After starting out as a literary critic he moved on to become a historian, outlining a vision of history as a chronicle of heroes who shaped events - a view that alienated him from the growing liberal and democratic trends of his time.

Drawing upon Carlyle's enormous correspondence and personal writings, Fred Kaplan provides a detailed study of the man. Much of Carlyle's life is uninteresting, coming across as constant intellectual anxiety and a never-ending concern about illness, frequently punctuated in his early years by moves in search of a more congenial locale. Yet Kaplan describes it in a surprisingly readable manner, one that moves the reader smoothly through what might otherwise be turgid stretches. His examination of Carlyle's tense marriage is especially strong; a woman of considerable gifts in her own right, she proved as popular in London's literary circles as Carlyle himself, though the pleasure she drew from this was often offset by her own frequent illnesses and fights with her husband. Punctuating all of this is Kaplan's analysis of Carlyle's ideas, which he often develops within the context of the historian's many contacts with the leading literary figures of his day - a perspective that adds further to his insights into his personality.

Yet while Kaplan's biography provides an excellent portrait of Carlyle's personal life, it lacks an examination of the very thing that makes him worthy of study - his writings. Kaplan does recount Carlyle's efforts to write his many books and essays, but the finished products themselves are never analyzed for what they said or how they were received by the reading public. This is a glaring omission in what is otherwise a fine study of an important Victorian historian, one whose work had a significant impact on the thought of his era.

Introduction
Acknowledgements
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Thomas Carlyle

--Sartor Resartus

Appendix I: Carlyle to James Fraser, May 1833
Appendix II: Maginn's Portrait of Carlyle, June 1833
Appendix III: Carlyle to Emerson, August 1834
Appendix IV: Carlyle to John Sterling, June 1835
Appendix V: Carlyle's Supplementary Material to the 1869 Edition
Explanatory Notes
Glossary

Carlyle reading the "signs of the times" as they fit into his life's thought. The low rating here is not necessarily for content but because it is disjointed, cluttered, and rambling; and no, it's not simply the "style of the times," it's how his mind poured itself onto the paper.

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." — Mark Twain

Sartor Resartus, which means "The Tailor Re-tailored" is ostensibly a book on "The Philosophy of Clothing" by a German author, Herr Diogenes Teufelsdrockh. We're told that this is the English translation from the original German. But, this is much more than a translation. The translator feels that in order to make the book more accessible to his English audience, he should include copious commentary and background. In the end, not only do we get the the translation of the original along with the editor's commentary but we also get a biography of Teufelsdrockh assembled from the strange and seemingly random contents of six sealed paper bags which the editor has come into possession of, and which he plans to deposit later at the British Museum.This is all great, except that Teufelsdrockh is fictional along with the German version of the book and the six paper bags. So it's a fictional translation by a fictional editor of a fictional book that turns out to actually be a rather hilarious semi-autobiograhical portrayal of Carlyle and his thoughts.At times it's parody of Hegel, at other times it's religious and existential musings then later it's political and philosophical commentary. All that alone would be enough, but couple it with Carlyle's brobdingagian (big) vocabulary, his dream-like writing style and now obscure references to historical and contemporary (for him) events and you get a fascinating book that is unique in many ways.I thought it was funny, insightful and memorable. I loved the writing style, and though it took me several months to read it, it was worth the effort. You can find it for free on Google Books, Gutenberg etc.Here are a couple of existential quotations from the book:Are we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an Appearance; and that fade away again into air and Invisibility? This is no metaphor, it is a simple scientific fact: we start out of Nothingness, take figure, and are Apparitions; round us, as round the veriest spectre, is Eternity; and to Eternity minutes are as years and aeons. Come there not tones of Love and Faith, as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song of beatified Souls? And again, do not we squeak and gibber (in our discordant, screech-owlish debatings and recriminatings); and glide bodeful, and feeble, and fearful; or uproar (poltern), and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead,—till the scent of the morning air summons us to our still Home; and dreamy Night becomes awake and Day?Motivational:'So bandaged, and hampered, and hemmed in,' groaned he, 'with thousand requisitions, obligations, straps, tatters, and tagrags, I can neither see nor move: not my own am I, but the World's; and Time flies fast, and Heaven is high, and Hell is deep: Man! bethink thee, if thou hast power of Thought! Why not; what binds me here? Want, want!—Ha, of what?Do stuff!A certain inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells dimly in us; which only our Works can render articulate and decisively discernible. Our Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible Precept, Know thyself; till it be translated into this partially possible one, Know what thou canst work at.