This is the most eligible enterprise I can think of at present: if you can arrange your side of it on these terms, I shall be very happy to hear so, as soon as possible, and proceed forthwith to take measures for performing mine.

Progress was slow at first, as Carlyle harboured doubts about his subject and his ability to complete the task he had set for himself, as well as finding difficulty in accessing source materials.

Various assistants helped with his research, making trips to the British Library and State Paper Office among other collections, also copying extracts from German histories.

Carlyle purchased many books on German history, a significant number of which he left to Harvard University in his will; they are now housed in the Houghton Library.

In 1854, Carlyle had a soundproof room built in the top story of his house on Cheyne Row in order to block the noise from his neighbours and the street.

[11] Ralph Waldo Emerson considered it "a book that is a Judgment Day, for its moral verdict on men and nations, and the manners of modern times.

"[12] James Russell Lowell wrote that "The figures of most historians seem like dolls stuffed with bran, whose whole substance runs out through any hole that criticism may tear in them; but Carlyle's are so real in comparison, that, if you prick them, they bleed.

"[12] William Allingham left his impressions:Suppose you care little or nothing at all for the King of Prussia and his concerns,—if you care for Literature and for Genius, here is a supreme work of Literary Genius, here is the best that a truly Great Man of the literary sort found himself able to give you by the conscientious devotion of thirteen laborious years; here is spread out legibly before you a world of wit, humour, picture, narrative, character, history, thought, wisdom, shrewdness, learning, insight.

Goebbels told Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk that after the second reading a few days before the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April, "The Führer... had tears in his eyes.

Project Gutenberg: Contents; Volumes I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI; Appendix