Baylor Sets International Carlyle Conference for Oct. 23-25

by Alan Hunt

Baylor University's Armstrong-Browning Library will host an international conference Oct. 23-25 on 19th Century Scottish essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle.
Dr. Mairi Rennie, director of Armstrong-Browning Library, said the conference, "Thomas Carlyle: Venerated Friend," will explore the relationships of Carlyle with other 19th Century figures.
Rennie said Carlyle was a long-time friend of famous English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. "The Brownings' courtship correspondence has numerous references to this writer whose distinctive style became known as 'Carlylese,'" she said.
Keynote speakers at the conference will be Dr. Clyde de L. Ryals of Duke University, who recently published "The Life of Robert Browning: A Critical Biography," and Dr. Ian Campbell of Edinburgh University, Scotland. Campbell has written the standard biography of Thomas Carlyle, and his edition of Carlyle's REMINISCENCES for Oxford University Press will be published this month. Copies of this book will be on sale in the Armstrong-Browning Library's Gift Gallery during the conference.
The conference will be held in conjunction with the opening of an exhibit of 113 important Carlyle-related letters dating from 1849-77. Rennie said the majority of the letters are from John Forster to Carlyle and reflect a notable friendship. Forster, also a friend of the Brownings, was a journalist and historian as well as a biographer of Oliver Goldsmith, Walter Savage Landor and Charles Dickens. The exhibit will be on display through Feb. 28, 1998.
The conference program and exhibit are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Rennie at 710-3566.