Beschreibung:

Thomas Carlyle--James Anthony Froude
Series of c.51 autograph letters signed, to Thomas Carlyle and his niece Mary Aitken,
including lengthy descriptive letters written during his tours of South Africa in 1874-75, discussing other public affairs such as the Anglo-Russian crisis of 1877-78 ("...I very much fear that Lord Beaconsfield and the Queen will have their way after all and that another month will see us at war with Russia...", 1 January [1878?]), his own writing and editorial duties (including William Allingham and the editorship of Fraser's Magazine), his role as Carlyle's literary executor and the publication and copyright of Carlyle's Reminiscences, also personal affairs ("...My daughter is wasting away [...] her recovery is impossible...", 23 May 1875) including a warm description of his new country home in Kingsbridge, Devon, with a few copies and related items, c.210 pages, 8vo, with many autograph envelopes, 1870s-1881 "...After staying for weeks at Cape Town I made a tour at the invitation of some of the inhabitants through the Western Province of the Cape Colony. It is almost wholly Dutch. The people are quiet and old fashioned and although there are several large & prosperous towns they have not a newspaper among them [...] The English & Scots who come to the Cape come to make money & go away with it. They do little in consequence but speculate and trade. They go in for diamonds & gold & wool. Their farms are sheep goat & cattle farms and you may travel 50 miles in the Eastern Province without seeing a ploughed field. The Dutch are slowly spreading their homesteads, enclosing, planting cultivating and building solid homes. They are born in the Colony and never dream of leaving it..." (Froude to Carlyle, Maritzberg, 26 August [1874])
James Anthony Froude (1818-94) was a literary acolyte of Carlyle, a close friend in his final years, and subsequently a highly controversial biographer and literary executor. A number of these letters date from the mid-1870s, when his close connection to the Colonial Secretary, the 4th Earl of Carnavon, led to his playing an active role in public life - in particular undertaking two tours of South Africa in 1874-75 to investigate the possibility of joining the colonies into a federation. 
Carlyle entrusted Froude with many of his personal papers and those of his wife, entrusting to him the role of editor and biographer, although he appears to have given contradictory instructions on the exact scope of what was to be published. The later letters in this series often touch on Carlyle's papers and plans for publication. Several of the letters are written to Carlyle's niece, Mary Aitken Carlyle, to whom Carlyle left the residue of his papers. Froude's publication of the Reminiscences and his later biographical work on Carlyle led to a major falling-out with Mary Aitken Carlyle as well as a longstanding controversy over the Carlyle's marriage and literary legacy that lasted for decades. Mary Aitken's views of Froude can be glimpsed in her letters to Mary Anstruther (see lot 265). 
PROVENANCE:Alexander Carlyle (1843-1931) and Mary Carlyle Aitken (1848-95); thence by direct descent