More Connective Notes
Henry Crabbe Robinson’s diary has observations on Thomas Carlyle in 1832. Ralph Waldo Emerson left the ministry and journeyed to Europe in 1833. He met Carlyle, Walter Savage Landor, Coleridge, and many others. According to Crabbe Robinson, Landor thought that William Blake was the greatest English poet of all time. This makes it remotely possible that Emerson was exposed to Blake’s work, though to my knowledge he never mentioned it. Emerson wrote several reminisces on Carlyle based on his own diaries in English Traits, published in 1856.
Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus was first published serially from November 1833 to August 1834, in Fraser’s Magazine, published privately for an edition of 58. An introduction to an 1899 edition of Emerson’s works noted the “Sartor” characteristics to the writing style of Emerson’s 1833 journal; obviously, Carlyle shared Sartor Resartus with Emerson before it was published. The first public edition of the book was an American one, which included an unaccredited preface by Emerson in 1836. A second American edition followed in 1837, before the first English edition in 1838.
Carlyle’s lectures on Heroes and Hero Worship occurred in 1840. They were issued in book form in 1841, 1842, and 1846. Margaret Fuller praised Carlyle in an 1841 edition of The Dial. Crabbe Robinson has reminisces of Emerson from 1848, from his second visit to Europe. In 1850, Emerson published Representative Men in 1850, coincident with Matthew Brady’s Illustrious Americans. Emerson’s work is based on a series of lectures from 1845-46; Brady began collecting portraits of celebrities in 1844.
Don’t mind me. . . . I just had to write this down before I got confused. . . . I’m reading too many things at once!
