At first 'Vanity Fair' did not greatly attract the public, although now the opening chapters that introduce Becky Sharp are usually found very interesting. Contemporaries, of course, could have no idea that she was destined to be come one of the great heroines of fiction, and they knew Thackeray, not as a distinguished novelist, but as a clever satirist and burlesquer and draftsman. Before 1848, however, readers were awake to the fact that they had another great novelist in their midst. Charlotte Brontë and the Edinburgh Review acclaimed him, and he became something of a literary lion. To this day 'Vanity Fair' is regarded by many people as his most important though not his most artistic work, and readers still divide into partisans of Dickens and of Thackeray, the latter usually winning the suffrages of the more critical.
Meanwhile Thackeray, again rivaling Dick ens — the rivalry was of the friendliest kind save for one episode to be mentioned later— had published several Chrismas books: 'Mrs. Perkins's Ball' (December 1846) the success of which is said to have helped 'Vanity Fair,' 'Our Street' (1847), 'Dr. Birch and His Young Friends' (1848),
In November 1848 the first part of nis) appeared. It was not concluded until De cember 1850, owing to a severe illness which Thackeray had in the autumn of 1849. It is the most autobiographical of his novels, and much ingenuity has been displayed in discovering the supposed originals of his characters. Maginn, for example, is thought to have been repre sented in Captain Shandon. It is more certain that 'Pendennis) is an effective presentation of literary life in London in Thackeray's day, and that he had no intention of running down his brother authors, as some critics accused him of doing. With all its merits 'Pendennis' suffers, as do 'Vanity Fair,' 'The New comes,' and 'The Virginians,' from its sprawl ing length.
Efforts had been made to supply Thackeray with a permanent, definite income by securing him an appointment as a magistrate or in the postal service; but his well-meaning friends had failed. In 1851, disliking the stand taken by Punch against Napoleon III, he resigned from the staff. Although he still continued to con tribute, it seemed advisable to secure another source of income. This he found in lecturing. In May and June 1851 he delivered six lectures before distinguished audiences in Willis's Rooms, on his favorite humorists of the 18th century. They were successful when de livered, and, in their collected form (1853), rank high among his works, for their charm of style and their rare sympathy. They were sub
sequently delivered in other places in Great Britain, and then, on 30 Oct. 1852, Thackeray sailed (in company with A. H. Clough (q.v.) and James Russell Lowell) to deliver them in America.
Just as he was starting he received a copy of the novel he had been working upon for months, reading in the British Museum for ma terials and laboring carefully upon his style. 'The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.' was not published in parts, and hence is the most artistic of Thackeray's novels, with the exception of 'Barry Lyndon.' Its subtle study of feminine character, its nice balancing of romance and the realism that accompanies a minute knowledge of a period such as Thackeray possessed of the 18th century and particularly of the reign of Queen Anne, its attractive though perhaps some what over-labored style, and above all its pervading atmosphere of tender sentiment, have made it not only a classic historical romance but the favorite book of many Thackerayans, to whom it is idle to point out that perhaps the novel is after all masterly tour-de-force, that the essential vigor of Thackeray's genius is better displayed in the superb irony of 'Barry Lyndon' and in the unflinching portrayal of human vices and follies that makes
In America, Thackeray was most cordially received, and by his genial manners he won many friends. He lectured in the chief cities North and South and sailed for home in April 1853, much richer in purse (12,500). Fortu nately he did not attempt to turn his visit to greater account by writing a book upon it, as Dickens had done years before.
The next two years were spent in good part on the Continent. The idea of 'The New comes' came to him in Switzerland, and during a protFacted stay in Rome, where he had a bad attack of fever, he wrote that charming bur lesque for children 'The Rose and the Ring) (1854). The novel for older children, with its delightful old-child figure, Colonel Newcome, was published in monthly parts from October 1853 to August 1855 inclusive; and is said to have netted Thackeray f4,000. The spasmodic mode of composition affected the structure det rimentally, but Thackeray's satiric power and his increasing mellowness of sentiment were ex cellently blended, and the book may fairly be called a masterly presentation of domestic life. The character of Colonel Newcome, who has some of the traits of Thackeray's stepfather, is said by late critics to be grossly exaggerated. 4Charmingly idealized° would seem a better phrase in view of the appeal the old man has made and still makes to thousands of hearts.