It was good of God, a catty observer wrote more than a century ago, to marry Thomas and Jane Carlyle together, “and so make only two people miserable instead of four.”
That’s a famously unkind cut at two of the central figures of the Victorian era, prolific writers who captured the spirit of this time of burgeoning industrialism and empire in their many letters. But readers can now decide for themselves whether the Carlyles were shallow creeps or keen observers (or both) because Duke University Press has just opened the Carlyle Letters Online, available free.
The archive features thousands of letters written by the Carlyles to more than 600 recipients: politicians, poets, scientists, and others. Each letter in the collection is indexed with multiple terms, and can be searched by date, subject, and recipient. Similar letters are linked to each other through a network that designers hope will encourage discovery and facilitate research. Thanks to an interface developed by HighWire Press, part of the Stanford University Library system, users can save searches to personal folders and get alerts whenever the collection is updated. —Josh Fischman
12 Responses to Famous Victorian Pen Pals Are Now Online
goldenteach - April 16, 2012 at 5:49 am
I think I would copyright the word “technology.” :)
mgmudel - April 16, 2012 at 7:33 am
The trademark word of the decade, sadly, since it is now somewhat meaningless, is “sustainable.” So, go for the long-term pay-off of an invention like “OK,” or the Wall Street short-sell of a word like “sustainable.” Of course, you could always collect your green with “green.”
dank48 - April 16, 2012 at 8:28 am
I wish I owned “pebcam” and its variant “pebmac.” I keep hearing them from the IT folks here, and it would be nice to receive a small royalty every time someone is told that that’s what’s wrong with their computer.
11185283 - April 16, 2012 at 9:49 am
If I could, I’d copyright “sh*t” and laugh all the way to the bank.
waratah104 - April 16, 2012 at 10:21 am
“Dude”
wingedwarrior - April 16, 2012 at 10:31 am
“If I had a copyright on the word …”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6CybPKqRsE
nybound - April 16, 2012 at 10:47 am
I would copyright the phrase ‘critical thinking’, and charge $1mm per usage…
dank48 - April 16, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Thanks so much for that. Just back from a funeral, and I really needed this.
mtboots - April 16, 2012 at 6:44 pm
“Awesome.” The most overused, misused word in the history of the world. (-:
mikegrubb - April 17, 2012 at 11:56 am
Question: If some unscrupulous lingua-capitalist were to copyright “OK,” could unscrupulous lingua-anarchists circumvent it by using “okay” instead?
Different question: In order to get paid whenever someone used the word “is,” would I copyright the specific word “is” or would I copyright the word “be (and derivative conjugations)?” I think copyrighting “is” would be very lucrative because I have it on good authority that “we couldn’t get very far in life not saying ‘is’.”
humpty_dumpty - April 17, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Partly in answer to mikegrubb’s first question:
When I was little, Dad and his gang used to say “хоккей” (hockey) for O.K., for laughs, even though they knew what O.K. was – in Russian the words sound almost identical, besides, there could have been some hint at hockey being one of the few areas where USSR was almost certain to trash the US.
When I was at college, one of the first aggressive ad champaings on the Russian TV was one about O.B. female hygienic products. The slogan was “O.K. O.B!”, and it was ringing in every viewer’s head. So it was the thing with us to say O.B. for O.K., especially in replies. Like, “I’ll bring the book tomorrow, OK?” – “OB” So yes, even if patentin OK were legal, it wouldn’t be pointless, because the users would immedialely replace it with an equivalent. That’s the arbitrariness of the language sing for you 8-)))
fledermaus - April 23, 2012 at 11:17 am
Why words and not letters? It would be more profitable.