Abstract
ANYONE who has read Gordon Ray’s two-volume biography of Thackeray will be familiar with the outline of events in the first six chapters of this book; those who have not, will not appreciate the amount of data provided here for the first time. A chief reason for the new details is the shift Aplin has applied to the biographical task—from Thackeray the literary master to Thackeray the pater familias. An equally important reason is that Alpin has edited a five-volume collection of Thackeray family letters and diaries.1 One result is a new portrait of Thackeray as son, suitor, husband, father, and virtual widower—aspects of his life we have known about but have normally seen as secondary details in the life of a literary man. Here the literary man becomes a supporting detail in the life of a family man whose forced bachelorhood led him closer to his daughters and, because of them, to his mother.
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