Carlyle's early work and marriage
After two years at Comely Bank, Edinburgh, the couple moved to Craigenputtock, an isolated farmhouse in west Dumfriesshire inherited by Jane's family. They spent six years with only a few servants and Carlyle's brother, Alick, for company. Carlyle found the conditions perfect for writing, completing essays on Burns and Goethe and his major work, Sartor Resartus. Jane was bored and unhappy, especially after Carlyle made a foray to London and met many other writers, including John Stuart Mill. It was decided that they would relocate to Chelsea and try to seek out a publisher for Sartor Resartus in the English capital.

Married life

Short on money but long on wit and conversation, their relatively modest home became a magnet for a wide circle of writers, artists, philosophers and scientists, the greatest minds of the age. Jane was regarded as the more gregarious of the two and had her own devoted group of friends, including Italian revolutionary Joseph Mazzini, French republican Godefroi Cavaignac and novelist Geraldine Jewsbury. She also proved to be an excellent homemaker on a shoestring, a habit born of necessary economies that endured even once Carlyle was rich and famous.

Her health was poor, and declined further after her husband became rather attached to Lady Baring, later Lady Ashburton, a great aristocratic hostess. Jane complained of frequent headaches and colds, which tended to limit their social life in the winter months. A severe fall, then neuritis of the left arm, then the right, left her weak and unwell throughout her final years.