Public domain photograph of William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

A selective list of online literary criticism for Victorian novelist William Thackeray, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Authors of Web Sites

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Introduction

Pearson, Richard. An introduction to William Makepeace Thackeray from the Literary Encyclopedia, 28 October 2000. On Vanity Fair [subscription service].

"William Makepeace Thackeray." The Victorian Web. Good essays on Thackeray's writing techniques, themes, biography, and the Victorian background.

Older criticism covers Thackeray's major and minor works and a biography, from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907-21).

A secondary bibliography for William Makepeace Thackeray, from Professor Jay Clayton, Vanderbilt U.

A guide to research resources from the Victoria discussion list for Victorian Studies.

Literary Criticism

Bruce, Donald. "Thackeray's memorials of defeat." Contemporary Review March 1993.

- - -. "Thackeray the sentimental sceptic." Contemporary Review June 1993.

Byerly, Alison. "Effortless Art: The Sketch in Nineteenth-Century Painting and Literature." On the visual sketches of Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. Criticism Summer 1999.

Cole, Sarah Rose. "Histories, International Genre: Thackeray, Balzac, and the Franco-British Bildungsroman" [Pendennis]. Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net 48 (2007).

Harden, Edgar, ed. A review of Selected Letters of William Makepeace Thackeray. Contemporary Review, April 1995, reviewed by Richard Mullen.

Removed

Fisher, Judith L. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3440/is_n1_v29/ai_n28698004/?tag=content;col1 "Ethical Narrative in Dickens and Thackeray." Studies in the Novel Spring 1997.

Litvak, Joseph. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3643/is_199601/ai_n8750012?tag=content;col1"'Kiss me, stupid': Sophistication, sexuality, and Vanity Fair." Novel: A Forum on Fiction Winter 1996.

Lund, Michael. Publisher's blurb for http://wsupress.wayne.edu/literature/littheory/lundrt.htmReading Thackeray (Wayne State UP 1988) which focuses on the serial publication of Thackeray's novels and how serialization influenced Victorian understanding of the texts.

Marks, Patricia. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3440/is_n1_v28/ai_n28670141/?tag=content;col1 "'Mon Pauvre Prisonnier': Becky Sharp and the Triumph of Napoleon." Studies in the Novel 28 (Spring 1996).

McCuskey, Brian. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3643/is_199907/ai_n8836885 Fetishizing the flunkey: Thackeray and the uses of deviance. Novel: A Forum on Fiction Summer 1999.

Mullen, Alexandra. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4021/is_200201/ai_n9029452 "Vanity Fair and vexation of spirit." "Thackeray invented the modern snob," notes Mullen. The Hudson Review Winter 2002.

Patten, Robert L. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3440/is_n1_v29/ai_n28698012/?tag=content;col1 "Victorian Fiction: Writers, Publishers, Readers." Studies in the Novel Spring 1997.

Phelan, J. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3643/is_199610/ai_n8745812 A review of Narrative as Rhetoric: Technique, Audiences, Ethics, Ideology (Ohio State UP 1996), which includes essays on Vanity Fair, Virginia Woolf's The Waves, and Toni Morrison's Beloved. Reviewed in Novel: A Forum on Fiction Fall 1996 by Herman, David.

Salmon, Richard. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3440/is_1_36/ai_n29088795/ "The genealogy of the literary Bildungsroman: Edward Bulwer-Lytton and W. M. Thackeray." Studies in the Novel Spring 2004.

Shillingsburg, Peter. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3440/is_n3_v27/ai_n28662939/?tag=content;col1 "Editing Thackeray: A History." Studies in the Novel 27 (Fall 1995).

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3768/is_200101/ai_n8932200 "Kubrick, Thackeray and the memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq." On filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's version of Thackeray's novel. Literature Film Quarterly, 2001 by Hesling, Willem.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_18_56/ai_n13670617 "A flat sharp," on the film version of Vanity Fair starring Reese Witherspoon. National Review, 27 Sept. 2004, by Jonathan Foreman.

A review of Vanity Fair from the Atlantic Monthly in 1865.

A feature page on Victorian times, from the British Broadcasting Company, contains much interesting social history written especially for the site and is a good introduction to the period.

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