It is not often that a class entails students to perform detective work in the library. However, after the four years I have spent in undergraduate college, I am beginning to realize that much of undergrad level research, is actually disguised detective work. This time, our class had many of treasure trove-ing in the Sojourner Truth Library at New Paltz in 19th and early 20th century literature to capture and document the unique marginalia found in the supposedly “self-destructive” physical texts of this time period. My expedition in the deep level of the library brought be to this old but plain and unassuming book titled, The Philosophy of Carlyle, written by Edwin D. Mead and published in Boston by Houghton, Mifflin and Company of The Riverside Press, Cambridge, in 1881.
Now, before we delve into the fascinating bits of things that were handwritten by people a century ago, you might be asking the same question I did while I was gingerly inching this old and worm book out of the shelves, who is Carlyle?