The complete letters of the pre-eminent Victorian, Thomas Babington Macaulay - essayist, historian, lawyer, politician and poet - are here reprinted in paperback for the first time. Revealing a man of enormous energy and wide interests, Macaulay's letters are notable for their brisk clarity and vivid style. The letters trace all the phases of Macaulay's rich life, from his childhood and Cambridge days, through his early legal and political career, his work in India, his election to Parliament and to the Whig cabinet, the development of his literary career and the eventual, triumphant publication of the History of England - all of this alternating with correspondence that reveals the anguish of personal crises and his deep family loyalties. The whole body of Macaulay's surviving letters are presented here, edited and annotated by Thomas Pinney, and sold in a set of 6 volumes, arranged in chronological order. Together they enhance our understanding of early Victorian political and cultural life as well as the thought and personality of the man himself.