BIB_ID
193970
Accession number
MA 4724.1-266
Creator
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863.
Display Date
1851-1863.
Credit line
Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 1991.
Description
2 v. (131 and 135 items), bound ; 27.4 cm
Notes
Letters numbered 1-131 are found in Volume I and letters 132-266 are in Volume II of this two-volume collection.
This correspondence spans the last decade of Thackeray's life, and includes extensive comment on his own work as novelist and editor, as well as evaluations of the work of many of his distinguished contemporaries. It is probably the longest series of letters Thackeray ever wrote to a single correspondent. As proprietor of the publishing firm Smith and Elder, George Smith, the recipient of the letters, published works of John Ruskin, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Anthony Trollope, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, and Thackeray. In 1859 he started The Cornhill Magazine, with Thackeray as editor, and in 1882 founded The Dictionary of National Biography. In his capacity as editor of The Cornhill Magazine, Thackeray writes to Smith concerning the work of such authors as Dickens, Trollope, Charlotte Brontë, Washington Irving, and Tennyson. He also discusses his own work, particularly The Rose and the Ring, The Virginians, Denis Duval, and The Four Georges, the autograph manuscripts of all of which are at the Morgan Library; and Esmond, Thackeray's first novel for Smith.
This correspondence spans the last decade of Thackeray's life, and includes extensive comment on his own work as novelist and editor, as well as evaluations of the work of many of his distinguished contemporaries. It is probably the longest series of letters Thackeray ever wrote to a single correspondent. As proprietor of the publishing firm Smith and Elder, George Smith, the recipient of the letters, published works of John Ruskin, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Anthony Trollope, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, and Thackeray. In 1859 he started The Cornhill Magazine, with Thackeray as editor, and in 1882 founded The Dictionary of National Biography. In his capacity as editor of The Cornhill Magazine, Thackeray writes to Smith concerning the work of such authors as Dickens, Trollope, Charlotte Brontë, Washington Irving, and Tennyson. He also discusses his own work, particularly The Rose and the Ring, The Virginians, Denis Duval, and The Four Georges, the autograph manuscripts of all of which are at the Morgan Library; and Esmond, Thackeray's first novel for Smith.
Provenance
Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund in 1991.
Summary
Collection consists of 266 autograph letters and notes from Thackeray to George Smith. Thirty-six of the letters or notes are written on the inside of an envelope flap. Letters in this collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see collection-level record for more information.
Housed in
Blue leather pull-off box.
Catalog link
Department