ABSTRACT
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was born at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, the son of a stonemason. He attended Annan Academy and went on to Edinburgh University. His family intended him to become a Presbyterian minister, but the intellectual life of Edinburgh dissuaded him from this calling and he instead supported himself by teaching, reviewing and literary work. He studied German literature and published a number of studies, anthologies and translations. In 1826 he married Jane Welsh, the daughter of a doctor, to whom he had acted as tutor in German. She was well equipped intellectually and temperamentally to support her husband's literary career, and later became famous as a literary hostess and correspondent of many of the contemporary literati.
