Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, London, Chapman and Hall, 1910, E. J. Sullivan and Me

Abstract

Using a posthumous illustrated 1910 edition of The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle, a deeply personal and heavily inflected history that was first published in 1837, the article considers the contributions to that history of the graphic artist E. J. Sullivan. The visual imagery contained within the two volumes of the history book reveals the artist to be someone of independent spirit with his own creative contributions to make to certain issues raised by Carlyle, particularly those of court corruption and of mob violence during The Terror. Sullivan’s use of symbols echoes something of Carlyle’s approach to the writing of history with further layers of interpretation and reception arising from the political, social and artistic contexts of England in 1910. Here the pictures are, furthermore, not subservient to the text for the reader/viewer is not merely being invited to consider the appropriateness of what has been depicted; rather I hope to show further how the experience of history can accrue performatively as well as over time.