pecific debts to particularly helpful librarians and scholars are indicated in notes throughout the book, but several persons have been an inspiration and encouragement beyond specific, detailable instances.
pecific debts to particularly helpful librarians and scholars are indicated in notes throughout the book, but several persons have been an inspiration and encouragement beyond specific, detailable instances.
James B. Meriwether was initially responsible for this book by encouraging me to work on Thackeray and by giving me a copy of the first American edition of Pendennis on the day I passed my qualifying examinations at the University of South Carolina. His influence as a teacher is evident to me on every page of the book. James L. W. West III has had a gradual and growing influence on it, by providing an example in his own work and by reading, approving, criticizing, and occasionally borrowing ideas over the years. He chaired the conference session in which I read the first paper relating to this project. He read one whole draft of this book, leading me to many changes. Edgar F. Harden has been another influential friend and scholar, leading the way with extensive studies of Thackeray's compositional habits and writing articles on Henry Esmond and the Miscellanies. I was sorely tempted to appropriate wholesale. He, too, read and improved a draft of this book. John Sutherland has led us all into the world of nineteenth-century author-publisher relations. Over ten years ago he complained to me that I should have finished this book already. His work on the Smith contracts made it clear years ago that a treasure trove of information awaited further exploration. Much of this book has been written with the sinking feeling that it will not measure up to his expectations. Robert Patten, by writing the model work on the relations between one author and his publishers, has made me work much harder than I originally intended. He, too, read portions of the manuscript of this book to my benefit- Gordon Ray, by editing the collected letters and writing the major biography of Thackeray, did most of the groundwork that makes a book like this one possible to undertake. But, in addition, he must have been more than instrumental in my appointment as a Guggenheim fellow to work on this project in 1982. I hope this book is better now [ix/x] these many years later than it would have been had I been more prompt in fulfilling the goals of that fellowship. Harry Heseltine, by providing a congenial work schedule, made possible the final push to complete the manuscript at University College, Australian Defence Force Academy, Two travel grants from the Office of Research and Graduate Studies and three semesters with a slightly reduced teaching load in the English Department at Mississippi State University have also been useful in this project and are gratefully acknowledged. Other scholars have had important, though less sweeping, roles in promoting the work represented here. Jane Millgate enabled me to write the first published results of my investigation of the Bradbury and Evans ledgers. Nicholas Barker's encouragement led me to complete the study of The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond. Paul Eggert proved an invaluable discussion partner for ideas developed in chapter 6. He also read and commented on the first three chapters.
None of these people is responsible, of course, for the flaws in this work or for the fact that there are more details than conclusions. From my point of view, however, the book is incomparably better than it would have been but for them.
I wish to thank the editors and publishers of the following journals for permitting me to incorporate all or parts of articles first published by them: "The First Edition of Thackeray's Pendennis," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 66 (1972): 35-49; "Thackeray and the Firm of Bradbury and Evans," Victorian Studies Association Newsletter, no. 11 (March 1973): 11-14; "The Printing, Proof-reading, and Publishing of Thackeray's Vanity Fair: The First Edition," Studies in Bibliography 34 (1981): 118-45; and "Publishers' Records and Analytical Bibliography: A Thackerayan Example," Book Collector 29 (1980): 343-362. A part of chapter 6 has appeared also in Editing in Australia (Sydney: Univ. of New South Wales Press, 1990) and in Philip Cohen, ed., Devils and Angels: Textual Editing and Literary Theory (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1991).
For permission to quote from unpublished material I thank Mrs. Belinda Norman-Butler, the representative of Thackeray's literary estate. For access to manuscript materials and to rare printed matter not otherwise available to me I thank Gordon Ray, Nicholas Pickwoad, William Baker, and Edgar Harden. For cooperation in using materials, both printed and [x/xi] manuscript, under their guardianship I thank the staffs of the Berg Collection and the Rare Book Room at the New York Public Library, the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the Parrish Collection at the Princeton University Library, the St. Bride's Printing Library in London, the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Trinity College Library at Cambridge University, the Henry E. Huntington Library at San Marino, California, the Butler Library at Columbia University, the Files Collection, Bobst Library at New York University, the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Australian National Library, the Mitchell Library in Sydney, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the Bradbury, Agnew Publishers, the Smith, Elder Archive at John Murray, Publishers, die Forester Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the rare-books rooms at the University of California at Berkeley, Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of South Carolina, and Mississippi State University.
For her encouragement, her criticism, and her suggestions upon reading the last draft of this book, I am deeply grateful to Miriam Shillingsburg.
Last modified: 4 April 2001