Thackeray: The Novelist

First published in 1954, Thackeray is intended as a reminder that Thackeray is, after all, a great novelist. Professor Tillotson, admiring the novels as great literature, explores their common characteristics and those they share with the rest of Thackeray’s writings – for he sees Thackeray’s work as all of a piece. He is particularly interested in Thackeray’s methods of narration and in the philosophic commentary which forms a sort of trellis for almost everything he put out. He sees him mainly as a writer who, subtle as he is, address himself to readers honoured as ordinary human beings. In two appendices, Professor Tillotson deals with two particular modern opinions – that Thackeray spoiled his novels by an ‘infiltration’ into them of his own biography, and that he has no place in the great novel tradition. This book will be of interest to students of literature and history.