William Makepeace Thackeray: References & Edit History

Gordon N. Ray, Thackeray, 2 vol. (1955–58, reissued 1972), is definitive and indispensable. Robert A. Colby, Thackeray’s Canvass of Humanity: An Author and His Public (1979), is a literary history. Ann Monsarrat, An Uneasy Victorian: Thackeray the Man (1980), is the best one-volume biography. Dudley Flamm, Thackeray’s Critics (1967), is an annotated bibliography of 19th-century British and American criticism, some of the most important items of which are reproduced in Thackeray: The Critical Heritage, ed. by Geoffrey Tillotson and Donald Hawes (1968). An interesting critical estimate by a friend and fellow novelist is provided by Anthony Trollope, Thackeray (1879, reprinted 1968). A variety of 20th-century opinions is assembled in Thackeray: A Collection of Critical Essays, comp. by Alexander Welsh (1968). John Charles Olmsted, Thackeray and His Twentieth-Century Critics (1977), is an annotated bibliography of British and American criticism, 1900–75; it is supplemented by Sheldon Goldfarb, William Makepeace Thackeray (1989), annotating more than 500 entries of criticism, 1975–87. Geoffrey Tillotson, Thackeray the Novelist (1954, reprinted 1974), is a subtle, persuasive exploration of his art. Jack P. Rawlins, Thackeray’s Novels: A Fiction That Is True (1974), is a formal approach to Thackeray’s major works. John Carey, Thackeray: Prodigal Genius (1977), includes a biographical summary.