A LARGE portion of the public, and especially that smaller section of the community, the readers of books, will not easily forget the shock, as universal as it was unexpected, which was produced at Christmas, 1863, by the almost incredible intelligence of the death of William Makepeace Thackeray. The mournful news was repeated at many a Christmas table, that he, who had led the simple Colonel Newcome to his solemn and touching end, would write no more. The circumstance was so startling from the suddenness of the great loss which society at large had sustained, that it was some time before people could realise the dismal truth of the report.

It will be easily understood, without elaborating on so saddening a theme, with how much keener a blow this heavy bereavement must have struck the surviving relatives of the great novelist. It does not come within our province to speak of the paralysing effect of such emotion; it is sufficient to recall that Thackeray's death, with its overwhelming sorrow, left, in the hour of their trial, his two young daughters deprived of the fatherly active mind which had previously shielded from them the graver responsibilities of life, with the additional anxiety of being forced to act in their own interests at the very time such exertions were peculiarly distracting.

It may be remembered that the author of 'Vanity Fair' had but recently erected, from his own designs, the costly and handsome mansion in which he anticipated passing the mellower years of his life; a dwelling in every respect suited to the high standing of its owner, and, as has been said by a brother writer, 'worthy of one who really represented literature in the great world, and who, planting himself on his books, yet sustained the character of his profession with all the dignity of a gentleman.'

In such a house a portion of Thackeray's fortune might be reasonably invested. To the occupant it promised the enjoyment he was justified in anticipating, and was a solid property to bequeath his descendants when age, in its sober course, should have called him hence. But little more than a year later, to those deadened with the effects of so terrible a bereavement as their loss must have proved when they could realise its fulness, this house must have been a source of desolation. Its oppressive size, its infinitely mournful associations, the hopeful expectations with which it had been erected, the tragic manner in which the one dearest to them had there been stricken down; with all this acting on the sensibilities of unhealed grief, the building must have impressed them with peculiar aversion; and hence it may be concluded that their first desire was to leave it. The removal to a house of dimensions more suitable to their requirements involved the sacrifice of those portions of the contents of the larger mansion with which it was considered expedient to dispense; and thus Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods announced for sale a selection from the paintings, drawings, part of the interesting collection of curious porcelain, and such various objects of art or furniture as would otherwise have necessitated the continuance of a house as large as that at Palace Green. These valuable objects were accordingly dispersed under the hammer, March 16 and 17, 1864, and on the following day the remainder of Thackeray's library was similarly offered to public competition. To anyone familiar with Thackeray's writings, and more especially with his Lectures and Essays, this collection of books must have been both instructive and fascinating; seeing that they faithfully indicated the course of their owner's readings, and through them might be traced many an allusion or curious fact of contemporaneous manners, which, in the hands of this master of his craft, had been felicitously employed to strengthen the purpose of some passage of his own compositions.

Without converting this introduction into a catalogue of the contents of Thackeray's library it is difficult to particularise the several works found on his book-shelves. It is sufficient to note that all the authorities which have been quoted in his Essays were fitly represented; that such books, in many instances obscure and trivial in themselves, as threw any new or curious light upon persons or things—on the private and individual, as well as the public or political history of men, and of the events or writings to which their names owe notoriety, of obsolete fashions or of the changing customs of society—were as numerous as the most ardent and dilettanti of Thackeray's admirers could desire.

The present volume is devised to give a notion, necessarily restricted, of certain selections from these works, chiefly chosen with a view of further illustrating the bent of a mind, with the workings of which all who love the great novelist's writings may at once be admitted to the frankest intercourse. It has been truly said that Thackeray was 'too great to conceal anything.' The same candour is extended to his own copies of the books which told of times and company wherein his imagination delighted to dwell; for, pencil in hand, he has recorded the impressions of the moment without reserve, whether whimsical or realistic.

A collection of books of this character is doubly interesting. On the one hand were found the remnants of earlier humourists, the quaint old literary standards which became, in the hands of their owner, materials from which were derived the local colouring of the times concerning which it was his delightful fancy to construct romances, to philosophise, or to record seriously.

On the other hand, the present generation was fitly represented. To most of the writers of his own era it was an honour that a presentation copy of their literary offspring should be found in the library of the foremost author, whose friendship and open-handed kindness to the members of his profession was one of many brilliant traits of a character dignified by innumerable great qualities, and tenderly shaded by instances uncountable of generous readiness to confer benefits, and modest reticence to let the fame of his goodness go forth.

Presentation copies from his contemporaries were therefore not scarce; and whether the names of the donors were eminent, or as yet but little heard of, the creatures of their thoughts had been preserved with unvarying respect. The 'Christmas Carol,' that memorable Christmas gift which Thackeray has praised with fervour unusual even to his impetuous good-nature, was one of the books. The copy, doubly interesting from the circumstances both of its authorship and ownership, was inscribed in the well-known hand of that other great novelist of the nineteenth century, 'W. M. Thackeray, from Charles Dickens (whom he made very happy once a long way from home).' Competition was eager to secure this covetable literary memorial, which may one day become historical; it was knocked down at 25l. 10s., and rumour circulated through the press, without foundation, we believe with regret, that it had been secured for the highest personage in the State, whose desire to possess this volume would have been a royal compliment to the community of letters.

Nor were books with histories wanting. George Augustus Sala, in the introduction to his ingenious series of 'Twice Round the Clock,' published in 1862, remarks with diffidence: 'It would be a piece of sorry vanity on my part to imagine that the conception of a Day and Night in London is original. I will tell you how I came to think of the scheme of "Twice Round the Clock." Four years ago, in Paris, my then master in literature, Mr. Charles Dickens, lent me a little thin octavo volume, which I believe had been presented to him by another master of the craft, Mr. Thackeray.' A slight resemblance to this opuscule was offered in 'A View of the Transactions of London and Westminster from the Hours of Ten in the Evening till Five in the Morning,' which was secured at Thackeray's sale for forty-four shillings.

Thus, without presuming to any special privileges, we account for the selection of literary curiosities which form settings for the fragments gathered in 'Thackerayana,' The point of interest which rendered this dispersion of certain of Thackeray's books additionally attractive to us may be briefly set forth.

In looking through the pages of odd little volumes, and on the margins and fly-leaves of some of the choicest works, presentation copies or otherwise, it was noticed that pencil or pen-and-ink sketches, of faithful conceptions suggested by the texts, touched in most cases with remarkable neatness and decision, were abundantly dispersed through various series.

It is notorious that their owner's gift of dexterous sketching was marvellous; his rapid facility, in the minds of those critics who knew him intimately, was the one great impediment to any serious advancement in those branches of art which demand a lengthy probationship; and to this may be referred his implied failure, or but partial success, in the art which, to him, was of all cultivated accomplishments the most enticing. The fact has been dwelt on gravely by his friends, and was a source of regret to certain eminent artists best acquainted with his remarkable endowments.

The chance of securing as many of these characteristic designs as was in our power directed the selection of books which came into our possession in consequence of the sale of Thackeray's library; it was found they were richer in these clever pencillings than had been anticipated.

An impulse thus given, the excitement of increasing the little gathering was carried further; many volumes which had been dispersed were traced, or were offered spontaneously when the fact of the collection became known. From books wherein, pencil in hand, passages had been noted with sprightly little vignettes, not unlike the telling etchings which the author of 'Vanity Fair' caused to be inserted in his own published works, we became desirous of following the evidence of this faculty through other channels; seeing we held the Alpha, as it were, inserted in the Charterhouse School books, and the later pencillings, which might enliven any work of the hour indifferently, as it excited the imagination, grotesque or artist-like, as the case might be, of the original reader, whether the book happened to be a modest magazine in paper or an Édition de luxe in morocco.

A demand created, the supply, though of necessity limited, was for a time forthcoming. The energy, which fosters a mania for collecting, was aided by one of those unlooked-for chances which sustain such pursuits, and, from such congenial sources as the early companions of the author, sufficient material came into our possession to enable us to trace Thackeray's graphic ambition throughout his career with an approach to consistency, following his efforts in this direction through his school days, in boyish diversions, and among early favourites of fiction; as an undergraduate of Cambridge; on trips to Paris; as a student at Weimar and about Germany; through magazines, to Paris, studying in the Louvre; to Rome, dwelling among artists; through his contributions to 'Fraser's,' and that costly abortive newspaper speculation the 'Constitutional;' through the slashing Bohemian days, to the period of 'Vanity Fair;' through successes, repeated and sustained—Lectures and Essays; through travels at home and abroad—to America, from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, to Scotland, to Ireland, 'Up the Rhine,' Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and wherever Roundabout 'sketches by the way' might present themselves.

The study which had attracted an individual, elicited the sympathy of a larger circle. The many who preserve mementos similar to those dispersed through 'Thackerayana' enlarged on the general interest of the materials, and especially upon the gratification which that part of the public representing Thackeray's admirers would discover in such original memorials of our eminent novelist; and which, from the nature of his gifts, and the almost unique propensity for their exercise, would be impossible in the case of almost any other man of kindred genius.

Selections from the sketches were accordingly produced in facsimile, only such subjects being used as, from their relation to the context, derived sufficient coherence to be generally appreciable.

The writer is aware that many such memorials exist, some of them unquestionably of greater worth in themselves than several that are found in the present gathering; but it is not probable, either from their private nature, the circumstances of their ownership, or from the fact that, in their isolated condition, they do not illustrate any particular stage of their author's progress, that the public will ever become familiar with them.

'Thackerayana' is issued with a sense of imperfections; many more finished or pretentious drawings might have been offered, but the illustrations have been culled with a sense of their fitness to the subject in view. It is the intention to present Thackeray in the aspect his ambition preferred—as a sketcher; his pencil and pen bequeath us matter to follow his career; we recognise that delightful gift, a facility for making rapid little pictures on the inspiration of the moment; it is an endless source of pleasure to the person who may exercise this faculty, and treasures up the most abundant and life-like reminiscences for the delectation of others. It will be understood as no implied disparagement of more laboured masterpieces if we observe that the composition of historical works, the conception and execution of chefs-d'oeuvre, are grave, lengthy, and systematic operations, not to be lightly intruded on; they involve much time and preparation, many essays, failures, alterations, corrections, much grouping of accessories, posing of models, and setting of lay-figures; they become oppressive after a time, and demand a strain of absorption to accomplish, and an effort of mind to appreciate, which are not to be daily exerted; long intervals are required to recruit after such labours; but the bright, ready croquis of the instant, if not profound, embalms the life that is passing and incessant; the incident too fleeting to be preserved on the canvas, or in a more ambitious walk of the art, lives in the little sketch-book; it is grateful to the hand which jots it down, and has the agreeable result of being able to extend that pleasure to all who may glance therein. If it was one of Thackeray's few fanciful griefs that he was not destined for a painter of the grand order, it doubtless consoled him to find that the happier gift of embodying that abstract creation—an idea—in a few strokes of the pencil was his beyond all question; and this graceful faculty he was accustomed to exercise so industriously, that myriads of examples survive of the originality of his invention as an artist, in addition to the brilliant fancy and sterling truth to be found in his works as an author.