First edition. Three volumes. Presentation binding of full maroon morocco lettered and decorated in gilt to the spine, and decorated in blind to the boards. All edges gilt. Author's presentation copy to his mother-in-law, inscribed to vol. I: "To Mrs. John Welsh. Liverpool. / T.C. / London, June / 1837." With a leaf of the original manuscript, a densely written on two sides and trimmed to fit, bound in opposite the title page of Vol. I A fine set with just some trivial wear to the joints and spine ends.

An exceptional set of Carlyle's magnum opus, which remains one of the most authoritative accounts of the early course of Revolution and has never been out of print since publication. It established Carlyle's reputation as an important nineteenth century intellectual and served as an influence on a number of his contemporaries, including Charles Dickens.
Carlyle had met Jane Baillie Welsh in 1821 and after much prevarication she agreed to marry him in October 1826. Shortly after their marriage, the Carlyles moved into a modest home on Comely Bank in Edinburgh, leased for them by Jane's mother, Grace Welsh. She had not approved of Carlyle as a son-in-law. Having been left £200 a year by her husband, widow and daughter became popular members of Haddington society and Mrs Welsh had hoped to attract a richer and more successful suitor for her only daughter. However, The French Revolution was the turning point of Carlyle's literary career and this copy, extra embellished with a leaf of the manuscript and extravagantly bound, was perhaps symbolic of its author's changing fortunes.
Presentation copies of Carlyle's greatest work are very scarce: besides this copy only two inscribed copies have been offered at auction in the last 100 years. The addition of the leaf of manuscript, unique to this copy, is also significant. The leaf contains the text for pp.58-62 from volume three. When Carlyle had completed the manuscript for the first volume of the work he lent it to John Stuart Mill for comment. When Mill appeared at his house to return the manuscript he was, Carlyle later wrote, "the very picture of desperation". Mill had left the manuscript at the house of a friend, whose servant had mistaken it for wastepaper and used it to light a fire and all that remained were a few, somewhat charred leaves. Carlyle was famously philosophical about this loss and completed the work rewriting the first part from memory. Following publication, the manuscript was largely destroyed with only fragments remaining.

PROVENANCE: Mrs. John Welsh (presentation inscription); Miss Mary R. Chrystal, grand-daughter of Dr. John Welsh, of Liverpool, uncle of Jane Welsh Carlyle, (sold Sotheby's, April 1938 ); Offered by Scribners in NY in 1942 for $1,000; sold Sotheby's, June 1976 to Drew; sold Sotheby's, December 1983, to John Howell; Private collection.

PMM 304

Stock ID: 45447