Chapter 7

Thackeray to an unknown correspondent, 30 January 1857.

Thackeray was always aware that as he became more famous, he gained more critics. In this letter, he responds to those mixed reactions. “My rule has been never to solicit a favourable notice from a critic, and never to thank him…But of course I am glad when I hear that young men like my books…knowing very well that the common cry against me that I am misanthropical bitter & so forth, whereas, please God, my heart is full of anything but unkindness towards the people who believe me such a cynic.”

bMS Eng 881 (5). Gift of Herbert L. Carlebach, 1954.