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Philip Gilbert Hamerton An Autobiography, 1834-1858, and a Memoir by His Wife, 1858-1894 — Reading Companion
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849
Project Gutenberg
2005
Not confirmed
Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 1834-1894; Art critics -- Great Britain -- Biography
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Project Gutenberg digital edition
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Edition facts
Words
216,281
Reading time
941 min
Text sections
18
This digital edition of Philip Gilbert Hamerton An Autobiography, 1834-1858, and a Memoir by His Wife, 1858-1894 — Reading Companion is described by source-level measurements including 216,281 words, 15 hr 41 min estimated reading time, and 18 detected text sections.
The text analysis averages about 24.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.
Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 1834-1894,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.
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Project Gutenberg record #8536
A dual-voiced memoir combining Philip Gilbert Hamerton's unfinished autobiography (1834-1858) with his wife Eugénie's continuation (1858-1894). The narrative shifts from Hamerton's own retrospective prose to Eugénie's detailed domestic observations, including his dietary habits and social engagements, offering a layered portrait of the art critic's intellectual and personal life.
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- Title & short description10 pts
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My reasons for writing an Autobiography.--That a man knows the history of his own life better than a biographer can know it.--Frankness and reserve.--The contemplation of death.
My birthplace.--My father and mother.--Circumstances of their marriage.--Their short married life.--Birth of their child.--Death of my mother.--Her character and habits.--My father as a widower.--Dulness of his life.--Its degradation.
My childhood is passed at Barnley with my aunts.--My grandfather and grandmother.--Estrangement between Gilbert Hamerton and his brother of Hellifield Peel.--Death of Gilbert Hamerton.--His taste for the French language.--His travels in Portugal, and the conduct of a steward during his absence.--His three sons.--Aristocratic tendencies of his daughters.--Beginning of my education.--Visits to my father.
A tour in Wales in 1842.--Extracts from my Journal of this tour.--My inborn love for beautiful materials.--Stay at Rhyl.--Anglesea and Caernarvon.--Reasons for specially remembering this tour.
A painful chapter to write.--My father calls me home.--What kind of a house it was.--Paternal education and discipline.--My life at that time one of dulness varied by dread.
My extreme loneliness.--Thoughts of flight.--My father's last illness and death.--Circumstances of my last interview with him.--His funeral.
Dislike to Shaw in consequence of the dreadful life I lead there with my father.--My guardian.--Her plan for my education.--Doncaster School.--Mr. Cape and his usher.--The usher's intolerance of Dissenters.--My feeling for architecture and music.--The drawing-master.--My guardian insists on my learning French.--Our French master, Sig. Testa.--A painful incident.--I begin to learn the violin.--Dancing.--My aversion to cricket.--Early readings.--Love of Scott.--My first library.--Classical studies.
Early attempts in English verse.--Advantages of life at Doncaster.--A school incident.--Fagging.--Story of a dog.--Robbery.--My school-fellow Henry Alexander.--His remarkable influence.--Other school-fellows. --Story of a boat.--A swimming adventure.--Our walks and battles.
Early interest in theology.--Reports of sermons.--Quiet influence of Mr. Cape.--Failure of Mr. Cape's health.--His death.
My education becomes less satisfactory.--My guardian's state of health.--I pursue my studies at Burnley.--Dr. Butler.--He encourages me to write English.--Extract from a prize poem.--Public discussions in Burnley School.--A debate on Queen Elizabeth.
My elder uncle.--We go to live at Hollins.--Description of the place. --My strong attachment to it.--My first experiment in art-criticism. --The stream at Hollins.--My first catamaran.--Similarity of my life at Hollins to my life in France thirty-six years later.
Interest in the Middle Ages.--Indifference to the Greeks and Romans. --Love for Sir Walter Scott's writings.--Interest in heraldry and illuminations.--Passion for hawking.--Old books in the school library at Burnley.--Mr. Edward Alexander of Halifax.--Attempts in literary composition.--Contributions to the "Historic Times."--"Rome in 1849."--"Observations on Heraldry."
Political and religious opinions of my relations.--The Rev. James Bardsley.--Protestant controversy with Rome.--German neology.--The inspiration of the Scriptures.--Inquiry into foundation for the doctrine.--I cease to be a Protestant.--An alternative presents itself.--A provisional condition of prolonged inquiry.--Our medical adviser.--His remarkable character.--His opinions.
First visit to London in 1851.--My first impression of the place.-- Nostalgia of the country.--Westminster.--The Royal Academy.--Resolution never to go to London again.--Reason why this resolution was afterwards broken.
The lore of reading a hindrance to classical studies.--Dr. Butler becomes anxious about my success at Oxford.--An insuperable obstacle.--My indifference to degrees.--Irksome hypocrisy.--I am nearly sent to a tutor at Brighton.--I go to a tutor in Yorkshire.--His disagreeable disposition.--Incident about riding.--Disastrous effect of my tutor's intellectual influence upon me.--My private reading.--My tutor's ignorance of modern authors.--His ignorance of the fine arts.--His religious intolerance.--I declare my inability to sign the Thirty-nine Articles.
Choice of a profession.--Love of literature and art.--Decision to make trial of both.--An equestrian tour.--Windermere.--Derwentwater.--I take lessons from Mr. J. P. Pettitt.--Ulleswater.--My horse turf.--Greenock, a discovery.--My unsettled cousin.--Glasgow.--Loch Lomond.--Inverary.--Loch Awe.--Inishail.--Inmstrynich.--Oban.--A sailing excursion.--Mull and Ulva.--Solitary reading.
A journal.--Self-training.--Attempts in periodical literature.--The time given to versification well spent.--Practical studies in art.-- Beginning of Mr. Ruskin's influence.--Difficulty in finding a master in landscape-painting.--Establishment of the militia.--I accept a commission.--Our first training.--Our colonel and our adjutant.--The Grand Llama.--Paying off the men.
A project for studying in Paris.--Reading.--A healthy life.-- Quinsy.--My most intimate friend.
This volume pairs Philip Gilbert Hamerton's own autobiographical fragment—covering his first twenty-four years—with a memoir written by his wife Eugénie after his death. The result is a work of two distinct voices: Hamerton's reflective, sometimes philosophical prose gives way to Eugénie's more immediate, detail-oriented account of their married life. Her preface acknowledges the challenge of writing in a foreign language, yet her narrative is marked by precise observations of daily routines, such as her husband's preference for vegetable soup at six in the morning and his particular taste for onion-soup with cream and parsley or Liebig and chervil.
The excerpts show a man deeply embedded in London's artistic circles—dining with Woolner, Leslie, and Haden—yet also prone to nervous exhaustion. Eugénie records his doctor's advice to cease work and his own letters, written in French, detailing engagements and health. The autobiography's preface sets a solemn tone, contemplating death and the pursuit of truth, while the memoir portion grounds these ideals in the concrete rhythms of a household.
Two Authors, Two Registers
The book's structure is unusual: an autobiography cut short at the author's twenty-fourth year, then resumed by his widow. Hamerton's own chapters, judging from the preface and early content, adopt a formal, introspective style. He writes of his reasons for composing an autobiography, the tension between frankness and reserve, and the contemplation of death. His sentences are measured, philosophical.
Eugénie Hamerton's memoir, by contrast, operates in a different key. She describes her husband's breakfast habits with clinical specificity: vegetable soup, always the same, made by her own hand. She notes that in summer he substituted cold milk and brown bread. Her prose is concrete, anchored in domestic detail. The shift in register—from abstract to particular, from the author's own voice to an observer's—creates a layered portrait. Readers encounter Hamerton both as he wished to present himself and as he appeared in the intimacy of daily life.
A Social Calendar in Letters
Eugénie incorporates letters from Hamerton that read like a social diary. One letter, written in French, lists a week's engagements: dinner with Leslie, Sunday with Lewes, Monday with Pearce, Tuesday with Mackay, Wednesday with Shaw, Thursday with Woolner, Friday with Woodward, Saturday evening with Marks, Monday dinner with Haden, Tuesday with Constable fils. The pace is relentless.
These names—Woolner, Leslie, Haden, Lewes—place Hamerton at the center of Victorian artistic and literary circles. Yet the same letter reports a "distressing and alarming disturbance of his nervous system." Haden, an etcher and surgeon, advised immediate rest. The juxtaposition of a packed social schedule with physical collapse suggests a man driven by ambition and sociability but vulnerable to overwork. The letters, preserved by Eugénie, provide a counterpoint to the autobiography's more measured self-reflection.
The Etcher's Education
Hamerton's development as an etcher is traced through his wife's account. After a visit from Haden, he writes: "il m'a plus enseigné relativement à l'eau-forte en une demi-heure de conversation que dix ans de pratique ne l'auraient fait." This single session transformed his understanding of etching. He expresses confidence in his future success, and the memoir notes his plans to publish etchings with Colnaghi.
The technical language—"eau-forte," references to Rembrandt etchings at the British Museum—reveals a practitioner's engagement with the medium. Eugénie records his visits to Buckingham Palace to see Dutch paintings and his study of Rembrandt's work accompanied by a collector. These details, though fragmentary, show Hamerton's serious pursuit of artistic skill, not merely as a critic but as a maker. The memoir thus complements the autobiography's intellectual aspirations with evidence of hands-on craft.
Domestic Economy and Artistic Ambition
Eugénie's narrative weaves financial and practical concerns into the story of Hamerton's career. A letter from West Lodge discusses garden arrangements: "what will be most economical?" He objects to keeping a man, approves any arrangement that avoids that expense. The same letter mentions Macmillan's plan for a new edition of The Painter's Camp and his frustration that Macmillan will not fund illustrations.
This tension between artistic ambition and financial constraint runs through the excerpts. Hamerton seeks to publish etchings with Colnaghi, yet economizes on household labor. His wife's account does not moralize; it simply records the negotiations. The reader sees a man balancing the demands of a literary and artistic career with the realities of a modest income. Eugénie's perspective, focused on the material conditions of their life, grounds the autobiography's lofty aspirations in the concrete details of soup recipes and garden plots.
Readers approaching this dual memoir should attend to the shifts in voice and perspective. Hamerton's own chapters offer a carefully constructed self-image; Eugénie's continuation provides a counter-narrative of daily habits, social networks, and physical vulnerability. The letters, quoted at length, give direct access to Hamerton's French-inflected correspondence. Together, the two halves form a composite portrait that is both intimate and incomplete—a record of a life seen from within and without.
Reading Hamerton’s own words, then Eugénie’s quieter ones beside them, I kept thinking how differently we each remember the same years. There’s a tenderness in that double exposure. It reminded me of old letters from another century, where public life and private worry share a page—much as A Belle of the Fifties Memoirs of Mrs. Clay of Alabama, covering social and political life in Washington and the South, 1853-1866. Put into narrative form by Ada — Story, Setting & Ideas holds its own layered days. Just a lingering thought.
Gabriel Wilson
1 month agoWyatt Thompson
1 month agoTheodore Davis
2 weeks ago-
Andrew Stewart - 1 month ago
{'rating': 5, 'text': "Hamerton's autobiography is a beautifully written introspection of an artist and writer's life. His honest reflections on creativity, nature, and personal growth are deeply moving. The blend of his own memoirs with his wife's perspective provides a touching and complete portrait. This is a timeless piece that offers inspiration and insight into the Victorian intellectual world."} -
Rodney Johnson - 4 weeks ago
{'rating': 2, 'text': "Despite the potential for an interesting life story, this autobiography is overly verbose and self-congratulatory. Hamerton's constant musings on art and nature become repetitive, and the memoir by his wife adds little new information. The tone is dry and academic, making it a struggle to stay engaged. I'd recommend it only for those with a specific academic interest."} -
Ruth Stacie Guzman - 2 weeks ago
{'rating': 3, 'text': "The book offers a thorough account of Hamerton's early life and his wife's complimentary memoir, giving a well-rounded view. While the writing is elegant, the narrative sometimes meanders into detailed descriptions that slow the pace. Nevertheless, it's a valuable historical document for those interested in 19th-century literary and artistic circles."}
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