The Letters of Thomas Babington MacAulay: Volume 1, 1807–February 1831

Some of Macaulay's letters were printed in nineteenth-century memoirs, but a 'Complete Letters' of this eminent Victorian has long been needed. Professor Pinney is editing the whole body of surviving letters by Macaulay, giving accurate texts and textual and explanatory notes. The letters are in chronological order, grouped by historical theme and phases of Macaulay's life. The first two volumes deal with his childhood, career at Cambridge, early legal career and early political career, and end with him about to leave for India. The letters are lively because Macaulay (as lawyer, essayist, historian, politician, administrator, poet) was a man of enormous energy and very wide interests. They will add greatly to our sense of early Victorian political and cultural life as well as to our understanding of Macaulay himself.

MacAulay, Thomas

Biographies & Memoirs

Cambridge University Press

The Letters of Thomas Babington MacAulay: Volume 2, March 1831–December 1833

Pinney, Thomas

The Letters of Thomas Babington MacAulay: Volume 3, January 1834–August 1841

<p>The third volume of Thomas Pinney's acclaimed edition of Macaulay's letters brings the work to its halfway point. This volume begins with Macaulay preparing to sail for India as a member of the supreme Council, covers his Indian career, his return to England, renewed election to Parliament and appointment to the Whig Cabinet; it ends with the defeat of Melbourne's ministry. Many of the letters are previously unpublished, and are notable for their brisk and vivid style, clear and readable as was all Macaulay's prose. They throw particular light on his Indian years, in which Macaulay played a significant part in liberalising movement begun by Bentinck. The period also took Macaulay through several personal crises, brought about by the death of one favourite sister and the marriage of another. In these letters too Macaulay often concerns himself with his continuing literary career.</p>

The fourth volume of Thomas Pinney's acclaimed edition of Macaulay's letters covers the period between September 1841 and December 1848, in which Macaulay is shown keeping up an active political life as MP for Edinburgh and member of Lord John Russell's Whig Cabinet. At the same time his literary reputation is extended by The Lays of Ancient Rome, the collected Essays, and, at the end of the period spanned by this volume, the triumphant publication of the first two volumes of the History of England. In the same years Macaulay was enjoying perhaps the most satisfactory period of his private life: we see him comfortably established in the Albany, enjoying the society of his sister and her family, taking part as a leading figure in Whig political and literary circles, and confidently at work on the book which was to crown his fame.

The Letters of Thomas Babington MacAulay: Volume 4, September 1841–December 1848

Business & Money

Economics

The Letters of Thomas Babington MacAulay: Volume 5, January 1849–December 1855

The years covered in this fifth volume of Macaulay's letters were a striking mixture of triumph and loss. The publication of the first part of The History of England at the end of 1848 set Macaulay at the top of his fame, not merely in England, but on the Continent and in America. Honours came pouring in, and the sales of his books began to make him a rich man. The publication of the second part of the History in 1855 was a publishing event of unparalleled magnitude: 25,000 copies were subscribed at once in England, and four times that number were quickly sold in the United States. To add to his triumph, the people of Edinburgh, who had so rudely and unexpectedly rejected him in 1847 as their representative in parliament, now recanted; though Macaulay refused even to appear before them, they insisted upon returning him to parliament, and did so in 1852.

From Content:  "That what is called the history of the Kings and early Consuls of Rome is to  a great extent fabulous, few scholars have, since the time of Beaufort, ventured  to deny. It is certain that, more than three hundred and sixty years after the  date ordinarily assigned for the foundation of the city, the public records  were, with scarcely an exception, destroyed by the Gauls. It is certain that the  oldest annals of the commonwealth were compiled more than a century and a half  after this destruction of the records. It is certain, therefore, that the great  Latin writers of the Augustan age did not possess those materials, without which  a trustworthy account of the infancy of the republic could not possibly be  framed. Those writers own, indeed, that the chronicles to which they had access  were filled with battles that were never fought, and Consuls that were never  inaugurated; and we have abundant proof that, in these chronicles, events of the  greatest importance, such as the issue of the war with Porsena and the issue of  the war with Brennus, were grossly misrepresented. Under these circumstances a  wise man will look with great suspicion on the legend which has come down to us.  He will perhaps be inclined to regard the princes who are said to have founded  the civil and religious institutions of Rome, the sons of Mars, and the husband  of Egeria, as mere mythological personages, of the same class with Perseus and  Ixion. As he draws nearer to the confines of authentic history, he will become  less and less hard of belief. He will admit that the most important parts of the  narrative have some foundation in truth. But he will distrust almost all the  details, not only because they seldom rest on any solid evidence, but also  because he will constantly detect in them, even when they are within the limits  of physical possibility, that peculiar character, more easily understood than  defined, which distinguishes the creations of the imagination from the realities  of the world in which we live."

Lays of Ancient Rome (Collected Works of Thomas Macaulay)

Classic Books

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The History of England from the Accession of James II (Collected Works of Thomas Macaula) (5 Volumes)

History

Europe

Speeches (Collected Works of Thomas Macaulay 2 volumes)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay (Collected Works of Thomas Macaulay 2 volumes)

Thomas Macaulay: Sculptural views on perceptual ambiguity, 1968-1986

The Institute

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