LibraryGeorge J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives

1.25 linear feet.

Catalog Number: M25

Series List:

• Correspondence, 1905-1941, n.d. .25 linear feet.
• Manuscripts, n.d. .1 linear feet
• Bibliography: Research Materials, 1889-1932, n.d. .25 linear feet
• Images, 1889, n.d. .65 linear feet

Agency History / Biographical Note:
Isaac Dyer (1855-1937), Bowdoin Class of 1878, was a Portland lawyer (1881-1931), a member of the Maine State Legislature (1885-1886), U.S. District Attorney for Maine (1890-1906), and a lecturer at the University of Maine Law School. In addition to authoring A Bibliography of Thomas Carlyle's Writings and Ana, published in 1928, Dyer also authored two books on Maine law.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was a celebrated Scottish essayist, historian, and man of letters who published works on important historical figures and events. His first major work was Sartor Resartus, though his second publication, the two-volume work The French Revolution, A History established his popularity. Carlyle was also an expert on German literature, having translated writers such as Goethe into English.

Scope and Content:
The collection contains materials compiled and created by Isaac Dyer while writing his Thomas Carlyle bibliography, including correspondence, carbon typescripts, Carlyle manuscripts, miscellaneous manuscripts, authorial notes, printed ephemera, reviews of A Bibliography of Thomas Carlyle's Writings and Ana, images of Carlyle and his family, a scrapbook, Carlyle's official seal, and a collection of Carlyle-related postcards.

Notable correspondents include: John W. Davis, F. Ernest Gruening, Archibald MacMechan, Townsend Scudder, and former Bowdoin president Kenneth C.M. Sills. Nearly all correspondence concerns the production and completion of the Carlyle bibliography.

The Thomas Carlyle Letters form a separate collection (M43).

Cite as: Isaac Dyer Papers on Thomas Carlyle, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine

Access Restrictions: None.