My books are friends that never fail me." (Letter to his mother, Margaret A. Carlyle; 17 March 1817)

Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a Scottish philosopher satirical writer essayist historian and teacher during the Victorian era. He brought a trenchant style to his social and political criticism and a complex literary style to works such as The French Revolution: A History (1837).