Thomas Carlyle undertook this biography of his friend, the British author John Sterling (1806–1844), because he was so dissatisfied with an earlier biography of Sterling by Julius Charles Hare. Sterling was an ordained curate at Hurstmonceux, but retired and began writing. His highest literary achievements were the articles he published in Blackwood’s Magazine such as, "The Onyx Ring" and "The Palace of Morgana." Carlyle’s biography has since become a classic and is studied more as a work of Carlyle than the life of Sterling.