In one of the 19th century’s strangest works of literature Carlyle impersonates the sceptical editor of the works of Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, philosopher and author of Clothes: their Origin and Influence. Carlyle’s satirical presentation of his fictional subject’s life and thought, perhaps intended in part as a parody of Hegelian idealism, was initially more successful overseas than in its country of origin, and was influential in the development of American Transcendentalism and has even been seen as an early existentialist text.

Oxford University Press | Paperback 320 pp. |ISBN: 9780199540372