SOURCE: Kolb, Jack. “The Hero and His Worshippers: The History of Arthur Henry Hallam's Letters.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 56, no. 1 (autumn 1973): 150-73.

In the following essay, Kolb traces the publication history of Hallam's writings and argues for the value of an edition of Hallam's letters.

In his recent article on Victorian biography and Victorian reticence, Gordon Haight quotes a highly characteristic passage from a Tennyson letter:

I heard of an old lady the other day, to whom all the great men of her time had written. When Froude's Carlyle came out, she marched up to her room & to an old chest there wherein she kept their letters, & she flung them into the fire. “They were written to me,” she said “not to the public!” & she set her chimney on fire, & her children & grandchildren ran in. “The chimney's on fire.” “Never mind,” she said...