3-082-110 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Thomas Carlyle's house at Chelsea, 1895. 'Many vicissitudes have befallen the house in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, which was the home of Thomas Carlyle for forty-seven years. It has come before public notice more than once lately, owing to the propensity of one of its inhabitants for crowding its rooms with cats. Now attention is again called to the house, which it is proposed to purchase and save from further dilapidation and desecration. Mr. Leslie Stephen considers that there is "no house in London possessing such unique interest to all who care for literary associations." To the Carlyle Memorial Fund, of which Mr. B. F. Stephens, 4, Trafalgar Square, W.C., is the treasurer, the German Emperor, the Prime Minister, and several other distinguished men have contributed, and it is hoped that many objects linked with the life of Carlyle will ultimately be placed in his old home. Chelsea has already many "haunts of the mighty" - Meccas to which lovers of literature from far and near are ever wending their footsteps - and among them none is more worthy of honour than the residence of him who was called the Sage of Chelsea'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.