Life in 19th century Chelsea
By sally tarbox on 16 December 2016
Format: Paperback
I've never read anything by Carlyle, but that doesn't impact on the interest of this work on the domestic life of him and his wife Jane. From the day in 1834, when their coach arrives at their new home in Cheyne Row, Chelsea (where they are to live for the rest of their lives), the author devotes a chapter to various aspects of their everyday life.
Using letters and journals of the couple, we read in their own words of their doings: the endless servant problem, where Jane's hard-to-please nature coupled with the failings of her staff - drunkenness, incompetence, an illegitimate child - caused ongoing issues. Then the troubles with noisy neighbours and their chickens and endless piano playing, which so stressed the intolerant Thomas, and led to him making major renovations on the house in an unsuccessful effort to create a sound-proof study (Jane observed that "the silent room is the noisiest in the house.")
Money problems, pets, bedbugs, illnesses, clothing ... and against it all, Thomas struggling to keep writing, and a growing social life as they move up in the world.
A fascinating social document. ( )

Samuel Butler said that ‘It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four.’

The Carlyles may have been famous for their squabbling but there is little sign of it in Thea Holme’s The Carlyles at Home - an entertaining look at their day to day life in Victorian London. In fact, the author would have us believe that Thomas and Jane were almost a perfect match for each other: hypochondriacs who lived in their dressing gowns, dosing themselves with castor oil and mercury pills. Insomniacs who roamed the house all night, woken by the slightest rustle from the other’s bedroom, a chink of light through improperly drawn curtains, the crowing of local cockerels, fireworks from the opposite side of the Thames… Nor was it any easier during the day. Driven to despair by the slightest sign of life from neighboring houses, the sound of raised voices, the clink of piano keys, they were forced into an almost permanent round of remodeling in their efforts to soundproof their house.

Indeed, as the Carlyles lurch from one failed makeover to the next, this house, on Cheyne Way in Chelsea, becomes a very real third character in the book. For a number of years it was overrun with workmen, months behind in the latest round of repairs. Thomas, driven to distraction by the sawing and banging, spent weeks away, leaving Jane to do much of the cooking and cleaning herself. Because, given the state of the house and their very obvious eccentricities, the Carlyles were unable to keep good help. They made do instead with maids who succumbed to theft, drunkenness and laziness, not to mention out of wedlock pregnancies. One young woman was sent home to Scotland after a ‘second misfortune’, another is said to have given birth in the china closet while Thomas Carlyle took tea in the next room, a situation that caused Jane much ‘wry humor’, given that life at Cheyne Way revolved totally around her husband’s needs and wants.

For the most part Jane seems to have accepted this arrangement, allowing her own considerable talents to be subsumed into creating a home. But is it possible that she did this with much less grace than Holme credits her with and that Samuel Butler’s picture of an unhappy marriage is closer to the truth? I hope not, because despite all their quirkiness, and all his selfishness, I really liked Jane and Thomas Carlyle and I really liked the marriage as it was presented in this wonderful book. ( )

The Carlyles At Home is an account of the years that Thomas and Jane Carlyle lived at 5 (now 24) Cheyne Row, London, moving there in 1834 and covering the years up until Jane’s death in 1866. Thomas Carlyle was, of course, a famous writer and essayist, and the couple hobnobbed with many famous people (as a side note, it was interesting to learn that John Stuart Mill's maid accidentally burned the manuscript of Carlyle's The French Revolution, thinking it was waste paper!). Carlyle's relationship with his wife was stormy, to say the least; but this book is less about all of that than it is about the couple's domestic arrangements.

The book is short (about 200 pages), but it covers a lot of ground, from the animals the couple kept (the story of their dog, Nero, is especially touching), to the clothing they wore both inside and outside the house, to the various repairs and restorations the Carlyles made to the house (it turns out that 19th century contractors are much like their modern-day counterparts), to the wacky, noisy neighbors at number 6 (and the not-soundproffed soudproof room they had built), to their Servant Problem (34 maids-of-all-work in 32 years), it’s all here. And all very interesting, despite the fact that the domestic matters of famous people are frequently overlooked in favor of their accomplishments.

The book draws heavily from the voluminous correspondence that the Carlyles maintained over the years—it turns out that not only was Carlyle a writer, but Jane was as well. Her letters are witty and funny, and prove that the story of the woman behind the man is as interesting as the story of the man himself. Really, this book is more about Jane. Although I appreciate the tone of their correspondence, I’m not sure I would have wanted to live with the Carlyles—it seems as though Thomas was always complaining about something, or that Jane was constantly sick and in a bad temper. Their marriage has been described as unhappy, but in this book, I don't see that at all.

I thought the organization of the book could have withstood some better organization; it’s organized by subject matter and not chronologically, so things could often get confusing. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this glimpse into the lives of two intelligent, interesting people, written by an actress who lived in the Carlyles house nearly a hundred years after Jane’s death (the house is now a museum; her husband was the curator there). Although a strong female is at the heart of this account, it’s not an overly feminist book. ( )

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/mar07.html#holmetcah ( )

A fantastically funny account of the day-to-day lives of Thomas and Jane Carlyle in their home in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, in the mid-1800s. One of my favourite chapters dealt with maids (32 maids in 34 years!). I also loved the bit about the piano-playing daughters who lived next door. And the endless "earthquakes," major house renovations. I'm not sure I could have lived with either Thomas (a fusspot) or Jane (a hypochondriac), but together they made a supremely entertaining couple! I'd recommend this book to anyone. ( )