Latter-Day Pamphlets was a series of "pamphlet

Pamphlet

A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...

s" published by Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...

 in 1850, in vehement denunciation of what he believed to be the political, social, and religious imbecilities and injustices of the period. The book, which at one point vindicated slavery, failed to gain the approval of the Victorian public, and is often seen as a negative turning point in Carlyle's career.

The best known of the essays in the collection is Hudson's Statue, an attack on plans to erect a monument to the bankrupted financier George Hudson

George Hudson

George Hudson , English railway financier, known as "The Railway King", was born, the fifth son of a farmer, in Howsham, in the parish of Scrayingham in the East Riding of Yorkshire, north of Stamford Bridge, east of York. He is buried in Scrayingham...

, known as the "railway king". The essay expresses central theme of the book — the corrosive effects of populist politics and laissez faire capitalism. Carlyle also attacked the prison system, which he believed to be too liberal, and democratic parliamentary government. The imaginary figure of "Bobus", a corrupt sausage-maker turned politician, is used to epitomise the ways in which modern commercial culture saps the morality of society.

Contents

The essays are:

• The present time
  
• Model prisons
  
• Downing street
  
• The new Downing street
  
• Stumporator
  
• Parliaments
  
• Hudson's statue
  
• Jesuitism
  

Influence

In his painting Work

Work (painting)

Work is a painting by Ford Madox Brown, which is generally considered to be his most important achievement. It attempts to portray, both literally and analytically, the totality of the Victorian social system and the transition from a rural to an urban economy...

, inspired by the book, Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...

 depicted Carlyle watching honest workers improving the social infrastructure by laying modern drains in a suburb of London, while agents of the dishonest Bobus disfigure the area by marketing his political campaign with posters and sandwich board

Sandwich board

A sandwich board is a type of advertisement composed of two boards and being either:*Carried by a person, with one board in front and one behind, creating a "sandwich" effect; or...

s.

External links

• Text of the first five essays at Project Gutenberg