Overview

THE compilers of this dictionary must perforce, mark out for themselves, the boundary line which lie somewhere between the proper field for a dictionary and the more exhaustive field to be covered by an encyclopedia. While research connected with the works of Dickens have been carried on for years, Thackeray has been taken less often as a subject of investigation, and the book before us is the first serious attempt to offer to the public an adequate dictionary. This book is in fact an encyclopedic index to Thackeray's works. So thoroughly has this pioneer investigation been done that one misses nothing here that he finds gleaned for the Dickens Dictionary. Indeed, some advance has been made. Real places, and characters famous in politics and literature, are carefully noted, and one is surprised to find that Thackeray used so large a number of familiar names of poets and statesmen. The chief heroes and heroines, also, are traced in their varying reappearances throughout the novels and stories. This feature is of great interest in the case of Thackeray. In the Dickens Dictionary it would be of little value. In a Trollope dictionary it would be indispensable. The reappearance of a familiar fictitious character gives pleasure that novelists today seldom understand. Certainly a reader of Trollope comes in time to know Barchester people as an Englishman knows his Burke. That the genius of the novelist is in part a genius for names is shown by the fact that certain names invented by Thackeray have come to be real names. This is notably true of the Pall Mall Gazette and also the Whitehall Review, names now so real that we with difficulty associate them with the realm of make-belief. In several cases Thackeray's mistakes are noted (e.g., see Mrs. Washington), especially where he intended to state facts; and the authors have unearthed many interesting items such as those relating to the Princess Olivia and to Captain George Osborne. In some few instances under headings such as Captain Edward Strong new and valuable material has been given, having been obtained from manuscript sources. Errors in proofreading are so few that they add to the impression of accuracy and care that pervades the book. Although A Thackeray Dictionary is primarily for reference a lover of the novelist's characters could spend delightful hours in turning these pages, every one of which bears a familiar name, and a well remembered description from Thackeray's own pen or a brief summary of a famous story. Before us pass Lady Castlewood with her pack of barking spaniels, Barry Lyndon the Irish adventurer, the Newcomes, the Pendennises, the Queen of Crim Tartary and Captain Strong, a friend to all the world. To thousands of readers these are very real people, and this record of them, prepared by Miss Mudge and Miss Sears, will be of constant service and delight. -Library Journal, Volume 35

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