In October 1855 Thackeray again sailed to the United States, where he again remained until the following April, lecturing on (The Four Georges' with great success and repeat ing with less 'The English Humorists.) In 1856 he delivered the (Georges' throughout England and Scotland, and enjoyed the society of his children and his numerous friends, malc ing other lives bright, although his own was somewhat clouded by the precarious state of his health. In July 1857 he stood as the Liberal candidate for Parliament from Oxford and was defeated by a small majority, accepting his dis appointment gracefully. In November 1857 the quasi-sequel to 'Esmond,' for which he had gathered material in America, the only partially successful (Virginians,' began to appear and ran its course in monthly numbers until Octo ber 1859. It was at least a notable link between the mother and the daughter country and, al though it shows plainly the effects of Thack eray's increasing bodily sufferings, it probably deserves more Praise than it usually receives.
At this time one of the most unpleasant in cidents in Thackeray's life occurred. Edmund Yates (q.v.), a rising journalist, published in June 1858 a sketch of Thackeray that was not altogether pleasing to the latter. Thackeray re plied in a stinging letter; Dickens was unfor tunately drawn into the affair on Yates' side; Thackeray laid the correspondence before the committee of the Garrick Club; the committee and the,club took it too seriously; and Yates, refusing to apologize, was dropped from the club. Dickens seems to have been in the right, Thackeray unintentionally in the wrong. Alienation between the two ensued; fortunately a few days before Thackeray's death, they met by accident and shook hands spontaneously.
In 1860 a long-cherished desire of Thack eray's was fulfilled. His publishers, Smith and Elder, began to issue The Cornhill 'Magazine in January, and made him editor. The first number had an enormous sale and he was as delighted as a boy. He secured Anthony Trol lope and other good contributors, but for his own part was forced to content himself with printing (The Adventures of Philip' instead of a great historical romance of the age of Henry V about which he had dreamed, Neither 'Philip' (1861, 1862) nor (Lovel the Widower' (1860, 1861) wa.s altogether worthy of his genius, but the delightful essays lcnown as (Roundabout Papers' (collected, 1863), and to a less extent 'The Four Georges' (not re printed until they appeared in the Collected Works, 1867-69) surely were. Thackeray soon found the cares of editorship —especially the duty of refusing contributions even from a writer like Mrs. Browning, too onerous, and he was too old to become methodical; so he re signed in April 1862. His health steadily de clined— though one finds little trace of the fact in the admirable chapters of 'Dennis Duval' (1867), which was running in The Cornhill at the time of his death. In Novem ber 1862 he was seriously ill. With his white hair he passed for an old man, although he was about 52% years on that fatal night of 23 Dec. 1863, when he went early to bed without suspecting that death was so near. An effusion of blood took place in his brain, and he was found dead in the morning. On 30 Dec. 1863 he was buried simply at Kensal
Green.
Thackeray, as has been said, was very tall— % colossal infant° Motley called him, with ((white, shiny, ringletty hair . . . a round ish face° and la little dab of a nose upon which it is a perpetual wonder how he keeps his spec tacles.° He was as attractive to his friends as he still is to the admirers of his genius. Per haps he was too much of a Bohemian in some respects, but as a father and a genial, kind hearted man it would be hard to name his su perior. As a man of letters his rank is, of course, very high. Besides being one of the chief of English novelists, he was a draftsman of ability, though not of genius, an excellent writer of society and satiric verse, an eminent lecturer, a charming letter writer, one of the best of the English essayists, a born provider of burlesques and comic slcits for the public of his day— in brief, he was an author of varied and copious genius, a master of humor, of satire, and of sentiment, and in addition a critic of lim ited though by no means small intellectual powers and an admirable stylist. Unfortunately the task of appraising the value of his work has been rendered difficult by the extravagant wor ship of his partisans. Many of the volumes that have been added to his Works since his death represent merely his talents as a journal ist, not his genius as a writer, and even his best books are often defective in structure or in strength. We are still too near him to be able to tell whether he will finally outrank Dickens as a creative force in literature or whether he will rank with Fielding as a portrayer of char acters and manners. We are not too near to perceive that he is not so important in the evolution of fiction or so cosmopolitan and heroic a figure as Sir Walter Scott. But his place is certainly with this small group of illustrious novelists. See BARRY LYNDON ; HENRY ESMOND ; NEWCOMES, THE ; PENDENNIS ; VANITY FAIR, Bibliography.— Thackeray's works have ap peared in many editions— notably that of 1883-84 in 26 volumes, and the (Biographical Edition,' with valuable introductions of Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, 13 volumes, 1898-99. Quite a Thackeray revival occurred after the publica tion of Mrs. Ritchie's edition—editions being superintended by Mr. Lewis Melville (im portant for completeness, faithfulness to the older texts, and bibliographical information), by Mr. Walter Jerrold, and by W. P. Trent and J. B. Henneman (the Cornhill Edition, 1904, 30 vols., with introductions and bibliography). The chief lives of Thackeray are those by Anthony Trollope Men of Letters,' 1879), by Herman Merivale and F. T. Marzials Writers,' 1891), by Lewis Melville (2 vols., 1899) and by Charles Whibley (1903). There are numerous volumes of Thackerayana and separate reprints of early works, as well as several special bibliographies, such as M. H. Spielmann's Hitherto Unidentified Con tributions of W. M. Thackeray to Punch' (1900). His correspondence with the Brook fields was collected in 1887. Consult also the article by Leslie Stephen in the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' and for criticism, W. C. Brownell's essay in Prose Masters' (New York 1901) ; Benjamin, L. S., 'Some Aspects of Thackeray' (Boston 1911).