Emerson, Ralph Waldo, and Thomas Carlyle | First English edition, and an intriguing association copy

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, and Thomas Carlyle 

Essays: by R.W. Emerson, of Concord, Massachusetts. With Preface by Thomas Carlyle. London: James Fraser, 1841

8vo. Half-title; minor toning, a few stray spots, contemporary pencil marks. Publisher's full green cloth, covers decoratively stamped in blind, spine gilt lettered, yellow coated endpapers, address slip signed by Emerson ("R. Waldo Emerson") to front pastedown, presentation note signed by Carlyle ("T. Carlyle") tipped onto front free endpaper; some rubbing to extremities, cocked, text block cracked, lower joint cracked. Housed in custom slipcase. 

First English edition, apparently gifted from the 19th century polymath, Thomas Carlyle, to friend and author, Charles Kingsley

In 1827, after Thomas Carlyle and wife, Jane Baillie Welsh, settled in the main house of Jane's modest agricultural estate at Craigenputtock, Dumfriesshire, he started to write some of his most significant essays. Around this time, Carlyle also began what would become a lifelong friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson, even writing the Preface to the present work, which would become a cornerstone of the Transcendentalist movement. 

In a letter dated 24 September 1858—the same date as the note tipped into this volume—Carlyle wrote to Kingsley: "This Book has been lying here for perhaps six weeks while I was absent in Scotland and Germany. Returning the night before last, I immediately send it over to the Rectory With salutations when it shall arrive."

Kingsley—perhaps best remembered for The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby (1863)—was a Church of England broad church priest, social reformer, and novelist, among other things. He is now particularly associated with Christian socialism, and failed labor cooperatives that led to the working reforms of the progressive era. He was a correspondent of some of the key intellectual figures of the Victorian era, including Charles Darwin. Kingsley sat on the 1866 Edward Eyre Defense Committee along with Thomas Carlyle (other members of the committee included John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, John Tyndall, and Alfred Tennyson). 

REFERENCE:

BAL 5338; Carlyle, Thomas, and Jane Welsh Carlyle. The Carlyle Letters Online [CLO]. Ed. Brent E. Kinser Duke UP, 2007-2016, www.carlyleletters.org, reference: DOI 10.1215/lt-18580924-TC-CKI-01