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Criticism of Thomas Carlyle. Selected and edited with introduction and notes by Michael DiSanto. Herefordshire, Eng.: Brynmill Press /Edgeways Books, 2006. xxiv + 278 pp., £9.60.
IN THE INTRODUCTION TO HIS SELECTION OF CARLYLE'S "criticism," Michael DiSanto acknowledges that neither this volume, nor "any other collection of reasonable length, can do justice to Carlyle's breadth" (viii). Indeed, when preparing a volume of modest length and modest price such as this one, deciding what to include and what to exclude, what to print in full and what to excerpt, is particularly onerous. All the more reason, then, for the editor to supply us with the rationale for his selections. Excerpts from Sartor Resartus and The French Revolution are not included in the volume, DiSanto says, "because those works are available for purchase" (viii). Fair enough. Those who adopt this volume for classroom use are thus forewarned that they will need to place separate orders for Sartor and/or The French Revolution (presumably the Oxford World's Classics and the Modern Library editions, respectively). Chartism and "Boswell's Life of Johnson" are also absent from the volume, says DiSanto, "because of their length" (viii). Here the rationale, particularly in the case of Chartism, is less justifiable. Certainly Chartism is a long essay, but it is conveniently divided into discrete, self-contained units, even just one of which (the opening "Condition-of-England Question" segment, for example) might suffice as a representative excerpt from what is surely one of Carlyle's most important essays of political and social criticism. Quite surprisingly, also absent from this volume are any excerpts from Past and Present. No reasons are offered for this exclusion, and one is thus left with the unfortunate impression that Past and Present, in the editor's view, does not merit the status of "essential reading" (viii) where Carlyle's "criticism" is concerned. I trust this is not really DiSanto's view, but some rationale for excluding Past and Present is called for here.
What, then, has been included? In the first two-thirds of the volume, texts from 1828 to 1840 are featured. "Signs of the Times," "On History," "Characteristics," and "Biography" appear in their entirety, while "Burns," "On History Again," and "Sir Walter Scott" are excerpted. On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History is represented by...