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)

9781108024891, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 January 2011

538 pages
21.6 x 3 x 14 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.

1. 1816. Flaxman - Lamb - the Clarksons at Playford - Wordsworth - Southey - De Quincey - Coleridge
2. 1817. On circuit - treason trials - Coleridge and Tieck - journey to Paris - Home's trials
3. 1818. Lectures by Hazlitt and Coleridge - visit to Germay - the court at Weimar - Knebel - on circuit
4. 1819. Clarkson - J. P. Collier and Mr. Walter - on circuit - Benecke - new chambers
5. 1820. On Elton Hammond
6. Flaxman - Lamb - Swiss tour with the Wordsworths
7. 1821. Mrs. Barbauld - Flaxman - tour to Scotland
8. 1822. Wordsworth's memorial poems - visit to Paris - Charles and Mary Lamb in Paris
9. 1823. Southey - Wordsworth, Coleridge, Moore, Lamb, and Rogers - Abernethy - acquaintance with Irving - Schlegel - Flaxman
10. 1824. Sir John Franklin - Coleridge and Irving - Athenaeum club opened - Lady Morgan - tour in Normandy - visit to the Trappists
11. 1825. Julius Hare - Sir James Stephen - Blake's Conversations
12. 1926. Blake - Lamb - Irving - Coleridge - tour in Ireland - journey with O'Connell - visit to Derrynane - Wordsworth - visit to Dawson Turner - Macaulay - Death of Flaxman
13. 1827. Death of Blake - Lamb at Enfield
14. 1828. Goethe - opening of the London University - repeal of Test and Corporation Acts - Bishop Stanley - H.C.R. quits the Bar
15. 1829. Antiquarian Society - Linnaean Society - Lamb's hoax and confession - with lamb at Enfield - Mrs. Clarkson - Wordsworth
16. 1829. Croker - tour in Germany - visits to Benecke, Knebel, Goethe, Tieck, &c.
17. 1829–31. In Italy - winter in Rome - tour in Sicily - stay in Florence
18. 1831. In England again - the Reform Bill - visits to Lamb and the Clarksons - Jeremy Bentham.

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