Fiction · 1836
Sartor Resartus
The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh
A fictional German professor's rambling, allusive philosophy of clothes — the notion that all human institutions, symbols, and even bodies are mere "clothing" for an unseen spiritual reality — is presented, argued with, and occasionally mocked by its own bewildered English editor, who along the way pieces together the professor's own turbulent spiritual autobiography.
Thomas Carlyle published Sartor Resartus in serial form in 1833–34; its eccentric, densely allusive style baffled many contemporary readers but established the singular voice that would carry through his later, more conventional historical work.
This Bibliomancer edition presents the complete text.
Contents
- Book I
- Chapter I — Preliminary
- Chapter II — Editorial Difficulties
- Chapter III — Reminiscences
- Chapter IV — Characteristics
- Chapter V — The World in Clothes
- Chapter VI — Aprons
- Chapter VII — Miscellaneous-Historical
- Chapter VIII — The World Out of Clothes
- Chapter IX — Adamitism
- Chapter X — Pure Reason
- Chapter XI — Prospective
- Book II
- Chapter I — Genesis
- Chapter II — Idyllic
- Chapter III — Pedagogy
- Chapter IV — Getting Under Way
- Chapter V — Romance
- Chapter VI — Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh
- Chapter VII — The Everlasting No
- Chapter VIII — Centre of Indifference
- Chapter IX — The Everlasting Yea
- Chapter X — Pause
- Book III
- Chapter I — Incident in Modern History
- Chapter II — Church-Clothes
- Chapter III — Symbols
- Chapter IV — Helotage
- Chapter V — The Phoenix
- Chapter VI — Old Clothes
- Chapter VII — Organic Filaments
- Chapter VIII — Natural Supernaturalism
- Chapter IX — Circumspective
- Chapter X — The Dandiacal Body
- Chapter XI — Tailors
- Chapter XII — Farewell
- Appendix
- Chapter I — Highest Class, Bookseller’s Taster
- Chapter II — Critic of the Sun
- Chapter III — North—American Reviewer
- Chapter IV — New England Editors
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
Source mind
About the author
1795–1881 · Victorian
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) was born in Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, studied at Edinburgh University intending the ministry, and lost his religious faith there before turning to writing and translation instead. The eccentric philosophical satire Sartor Resartus (1833–34) established his singular, densely allusive prose style; The French Revolution: A History (1837) made his reputation and remains his best-known work, written from his own idiosyncratic conviction that history turns on the will of exceptional individuals — a conviction he lost the first volume's only manuscript to before finishing it, after a maid at John Stuart Mill's house mistakenly burned it as waste paper, and rewrote entirely from memory. His London home at Cheyne Row became a gathering place for Victorian intellectual life. He died in London at eighty-five.
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