The Carlyles at Home by Thea Holme

By Thea Holme

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0000CMIA7
• Release Date: January 1965
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 204 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating

The Carlyles At Home is an account of the years that Thomas and Jane Carlyle lived at 5 (now 24) Cheyne Row, London, moving there in 1834 and covering the years up until Jane's death in 1866. Thomas Carlyle was, of course, a famous writer and essayist, and the couple hobnobbed with many famous people (as a side note, it was interesting to learn that John Stuart Mill's maid accidentally burned the manuscript of Carlyle's The French Revolution, thinking it was waste paper!). Carlyle's relationship with his wife was stormy, to say the least; but this book is less about all of that than it is about the couple's domestic arrangements. The book is short (about 200 pages), but it covers a lot of ground, from the animals the couple kept (the story of their dog, Nero, is especially touching), to the clothing they wore both inside and outside the house, to the various repairs and restorations the Carlyles made to the house (it turns out that 19th century contractors are much like their modern-day counterparts), to the wacky, noisy neighbors at number 6 (and the not-soundproffed soudproof room they had built), to their Servant Problem (34 maids-of-all-work in 32 years), it's all here. And all very interesting, despite the fact that the domestic matters of famous people are frequently overlooked in favor of their accomplishments. The book draws heavily from the voluminous correspondence that the Carlyles maintained over the years--it turns out that not only was Carlyle a writer, but Jane was as well. Her letters are witty and funny, and prove that the story of the woman behind the man is as interesting as the story of the man himself. Really, this book is more about Jane. Although I appreciate the tone of their correspondence, I'm not sure I would have wanted to live with the Carlyles--it seems as though Thomas was always complaining about something, or that Jane was constantly sick and in a bad temper. Their marriage has been described as unhappy, but in this book, I don't see that at all. I thought the organization of the book could have withstood some better organization; it's organized by subject matter and not chronologically, so things could often get confusing. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this glimpse into the lives of two intelligent, interesting people, written by an actress who lived in the Carlyles house nearly a hundred years after Jane's death (the house is now a museum; her husband was the curator there). Although a strong female is at the heart of this account, it's not an overly feminist book.

A Pioneering History

Although this book purports to tell the story of the domestic life of the Carlyles, it is really a book about Jane. This book is a pioneering work of social history, where the author set out to write a book about the woman behind the man: quite a revolutionary idea at the time! It is well written and interesting, and tells a great deal about the running of an upper middle class home in the 19th century: details about hosuekeeping, servants, home repair, and other minor issues that factor into all of our lives but rarely get mentioned in biographies and histories. This is a great book for anyone who is interested in domestic history or women's history. Nowadays it is a given that an interesting, educated woman might have a book dedicated to her... at the time it was quite a venture!

The domestic side of a life of genius

Now it is quite common to write biographies of the wives of great writers and thinkers of times past, but when Thea Holme, an actress living in 24 Cheyne Walk , wrote about the former mistress of the house Jane Carlyle it was very unusual. Yet the experiment was a success: Holme was a superior writer, and this short study of the Carlyles' lives at their home for over thirty years draws you thoroughly into its world of fighting with noisy neighbors, managing funds, and caring for small pets. Jane, the center of the book, emerges as hypochondriacal and at times overly sensitive, but paradoxically also intrepid and likeable. It would have been nice had Holme not taken Carlyle's career and the couple's courtship in Scotland for granted and provided more detail in these respectsm, but so much is given within here it is hard to complain. The book is ideally suited for its new edition through the marvelous Persephone Books; atypically, they chose not to use a period fabric for their endpaperes but instead wisely reproduce Roberrt Tait's famous 1857 "A Chelsea Interior," which shows the Carlyles among their beautifully wallpapered and richly upholstered library.