This was the book that established Carlyle's reputation as one of the leading intellectuals of the 19th century. It also served as a major influence on a number of his contemporaries, including Charles Dickens, who compulsively carried the book around with him, and drew on it while producing A Tale of Two Cities. Carlyle's book was closely studied by Mark Twain during the last year of his life, and it was reported to be the last book he read before his death.
And yet it came so close to disaster before it was even published!
Over to Wikipedia: "John Stuart Mill, a friend of Carlyle's, [had] found himself caught up in other projects and unable to meet the terms of a contract he had signed with his publisher for a history of the French Revolution. Mill proposed that Carlyle produce the work instead; Mill even sent his friend a library of books and other materials concerning the Revolution, and by 1834 Carlyle was working furiously on the project. When he had completed the first volume, Carlyle sent his only complete manuscript to Mill. While in Mill's care the manuscript was destroyed, according to Mill by a careless household maid who mistook it for [waste paper] and used it as a firelighter. Carlyle then rewrote the entire manuscript, achieving what he described as a book that came 'direct and flamingly from the heart.'"
Wikipedia is not alone in its hint at a suspicion of doubt about Mill's story. The Literary Hub website quotes Rachel Cohen, writing in the New Yorker: "Even at the beginning, Carlyle must have had, as we do, certain questions. Mill's house was full of valuable manuscripts; why would a maid just seize the first pages she saw and use them for kindling? Mill seems to have put them in a pile intended for waste; was there anything behind his carelessness? Was he jealous of Carlyle's accomplishment, or dismayed that Carlyle had represented the coming of democracy so differently than Mill would have?"
The Literary Hub adds that "it didn't matter, in the end – after a hard start, Carlyle rewrote the book, and when it was published in 1837, Mill wrote a glowing review: 'no work of greater genius, either historical or poetical, has been produced in this country for many years.' Except" (the Hub suggests) "maybe for the first version."
© Haydn Thompson 2020