THACKERAYANA.

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

THACKERAYANA

NOTES AND ANECDOTES

Illustrated by Hundreds of Sketches

BY

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Depicting Humorous Incidents in his School Life, and Favourite Scenes and Characters in the Books of his Every-day Reading

A NEW EDITION

London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

INTRODUCTION.

A LARGE portion of the public, and especially that smaller section of the community, the readers of books, will not easily forget the shock, as universal as it was unexpected, which was produced at Christmas, 1863, by the almost incredible intelligence of the death of William Makepeace Thackeray. The mournful news was repeated at many a Christmas table, that he, who had led the simple Colonel Newcome to his solemn and touching end, would write no more. The circumstance was so startling from the suddenness of the great loss which society at large had sustained, that it was some time before people could realise the dismal truth of the report.

It will be easily understood, without elaborating on so saddening a theme, with how much keener a blow this heavy bereavement must have struck the surviving relatives of the great novelist. It does not come within our province to speak of the paralysing effect of such emotion; it is sufficient to recall that Thackeray's death, with its overwhelming sorrow, left, in the hour of their trial, his two young daughters deprived of the fatherly active mind which had previously shielded from them the graver responsibilities of life, with the additional anxiety of being forced to act in their own interests at the very time such exertions were peculiarly distracting.

It may be remembered that the author of 'Vanity Fair' had but recently erected, from his own designs, the costly and handsome mansion in which he anticipated passing the mellower years of his life; a dwelling in every respect suited to the high standing of its owner, and, as has been said by a brother writer, 'worthy of one who really represented literature in the great world, and who, planting himself on his books, yet sustained the character of his profession with all the dignity of a gentleman.'

In such a house a portion of Thackeray's fortune might be reasonably invested. To the occupant it promised the enjoyment he was justified in anticipating, and was a solid property to bequeath his descendants when age, in its sober course, should have called him hence. But little more than a year later, to those deadened with the effects of so terrible a bereavement as their loss must have proved when they could realise its fulness, this house must have been a source of desolation. Its oppressive size, its infinitely mournful associations, the hopeful expectations with which it had been erected, the tragic manner in which the one dearest to them had there been stricken down; with all this acting on the sensibilities of unhealed grief, the building must have impressed them with peculiar aversion; and hence it may be concluded that their first desire was to leave it. The removal to a house of dimensions more suitable to their requirements involved the sacrifice of those portions of the contents of the larger mansion with which it was considered expedient to dispense; and thus Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods announced for sale a selection from the paintings, drawings, part of the interesting collection of curious porcelain, and such various objects of art or furniture as would otherwise have necessitated the continuance of a house as large as that at Palace Green. These valuable objects were accordingly dispersed under the hammer, March 16 and 17, 1864, and on the following day the remainder of Thackeray's library was similarly offered to public competition. To anyone familiar with Thackeray's writings, and more especially with his Lectures and Essays, this collection of books must have been both instructive and fascinating; seeing that they faithfully indicated the course of their owner's readings, and through them might be traced many an allusion or curious fact of contemporaneous manners, which, in the hands of this master of his craft, had been felicitously employed to strengthen the purpose of some passage of his own compositions.

Without converting this introduction into a catalogue of the contents of Thackeray's library it is difficult to particularise the several works found on his book-shelves. It is sufficient to note that all the authorities which have been quoted in his Essays were fitly represented; that such books, in many instances obscure and trivial in themselves, as threw any new or curious light upon persons or things—on the private and individual, as well as the public or political history of men, and of the events or writings to which their names owe notoriety, of obsolete fashions or of the changing customs of society—were as numerous as the most ardent and dilettanti of Thackeray's admirers could desire.

The present volume is devised to give a notion, necessarily restricted, of certain selections from these works, chiefly chosen with a view of further illustrating the bent of a mind, with the workings of which all who love the great novelist's writings may at once be admitted to the frankest intercourse. It has been truly said that Thackeray was 'too great to conceal anything.' The same candour is extended to his own copies of the books which told of times and company wherein his imagination delighted to dwell; for, pencil in hand, he has recorded the impressions of the moment without reserve, whether whimsical or realistic.

A collection of books of this character is doubly interesting. On the one hand were found the remnants of earlier humourists, the quaint old literary standards which became, in the hands of their owner, materials from which were derived the local colouring of the times concerning which it was his delightful fancy to construct romances, to philosophise, or to record seriously.

On the other hand, the present generation was fitly represented. To most of the writers of his own era it was an honour that a presentation copy of their literary offspring should be found in the library of the foremost author, whose friendship and open-handed kindness to the members of his profession was one of many brilliant traits of a character dignified by innumerable great qualities, and tenderly shaded by instances uncountable of generous readiness to confer benefits, and modest reticence to let the fame of his goodness go forth.

Presentation copies from his contemporaries were therefore not scarce; and whether the names of the donors were eminent, or as yet but little heard of, the creatures of their thoughts had been preserved with unvarying respect. The 'Christmas Carol,' that memorable Christmas gift which Thackeray has praised with fervour unusual even to his impetuous good-nature, was one of the books. The copy, doubly interesting from the circumstances both of its authorship and