Chapter One

Abstract

The range of Thackeray’s achievements as novelist, short story writer, familiar essayist, travel writer, illustrator, lecturer, versifier, playwright, journalist, and editor illustrates what George Saintsbury called a “many-sidedness” that continues to call forth new studies of him and his work. As organizer of an edition of Thackeray’s works, Saintsbury appropriately made chronology the guiding principle of his edition. On the one hand, he believed that “perhaps none have shown the actual characteristics of their genius—the gem while yet enclosed in the matrix—so remarkably as he did. The Thackeray of 1863 is in the Thackeray of 1833.” On the other hand, however, he also believed that “few men of genius have had a longer or more arduous process of ‘getting ready’—of completely freeing that genius from hamper and restraint.”¹ In following this development, one should hope to be guided by Saintsbury’s dual awareness.