Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence

Robinson's diaries and letters provide an important source of information about all the leading cultural figures of the nineteenth century.

Henry Crabb Robinson (Author), Thomas Sadler (Edited by)

9781108024884, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 January 2011

542 pages, 1 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3.1 cm, 0.68 kg

Henry Crabb Robinson (1775–1867) was a lawyer, journalist and indefatigable diarist, who was acquainted with almost all the important figures in English and European cultural circles. His surviving writings amount to almost one hundred volumes, from which this selection was compiled in 1869. He studied at Jena where he became acquainted with Goethe and Schiller, and became foreign editor for The Times, despatching eyewitness reports on the Battle of Corunna. He travelled to Switzerland and Italy with Wordsworth, and his reminiscences of William Blake are an important source of information on that visionary. He attended Coleridge's public lectures, recording not only the content but anecdotes about the audiences. Other activities included helping found the Athenaeum Club and University College, London. The combination of anecdote and critical appraisal of the notables about whom he writes makes the diaries a valuable source for the culture of the nineteenth century.

Preface
1. 1789. Family and childhood
2. 1790–5. Articled clerk at Colchester
3. 1795. Interval at Bury
4. 1796–9. Unsettled life in London - correspondence with Robert Hall
5-9. 1800–5. In Germany
10. 1805–6. In London - acquaintance with Mrs. Barbauld, and C. and M. Lamb
11. 1807. In Holstein, as Times correspondent
12. 1807–9. In London, as foreign editor of the Times - acquaintance with Wordsworth - at Corunna, as Times correspondent
13. 1810. In London - acquaintance with Coleridge and Flaxman
14. 1811. In London - debating societies - Coleridge's lectures - Southey - resolution to study for the Bar
15. 1812. In London - studies for the Bar - lectures by Coleridge and Hazlitt
16. 1813. Acquaintance with Talfourd - Madame de Staël in London - circuit - takes chambers
17. 1814. European politics - practice at the Bar - tour in France - La Fayette - French courts of justice - Madame de Staël - Benjamin Constant - Schlegel - 'The Excursion'
18. 'The Excursion' - Buonaparte's escape from Elba - death of H. C. R.'s father - tour in Belgium and Holland - visit to Waterloo - progress at the Bar.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]