A Roundabout Manner

The first anthology of Thackeray’s varied writings as journalist and essayist. With explanatory notes throughout by scholar and writer John Sutherland. Illustrated with sketches and cartoons by Thackeray. A charming gift for fans of Thackeray and Victoriana

William Makepeace Thackeray has always been an author for those with discriminating literary palettes. Few would deny that he is the finest literary stylist of his time. Thackeray was at his most Thackerayan in what he called `small beer chronicles’: the little things in life. His style reached its highest pitch in essays, his cutting wit in journalism.

This is the first collection to cover all of Thackeray’s versatile genius: his cartoons, his journalism, his carefully restrained sentimentality (much to Victorian taste), his cutting satire, his essayism and what one could grandly call the Thackerayan world view---summed up (as printed here) in the foreword and afterword of his masterpiece, Vanity Fair.