University of Virginia Library

Thackeray's Contributions to Fraser's Magazine
by
Edward M. White

William Makepeace Thackeray contributed heavily to Fraser's Magazine in the early years of his career. There he first published the various "Yellowplush" papers (1837-38), "Catherine" (1839-40), "A Shabby-Genteel Story" (1840), "The Great Hoggarty Diamond" (1841), the various "Fitzboodle" papers (1842-43), "Barry Lyndon" (1844), and a large variety of ballads, tales, travel pieces, and critical articles. Though he was contributing at this time to a number of other periodicals, Thackeray's most substantial and important work appears in Fraser's; it is this magazine more than any other that provided the apprentice training that was to turn him into a highly professional novelist.[1]

Thus it becomes of some importance to the Thackeray scholar to examine these early writings. But an investigation of the available bibliographies reveals an extraordinary lack of agreement about which Fraser's articles are Thackeray's. At one time or another, one hundred and fifty-three different contributions have been listed as surely or possibly by him, but no single authority has included more than one hundred and twenty-two, and most bibliographies list under one hundred. The differences are not only quantitative, however; we find items listed as doubtful on one bibliography marked as sure on the next, and not mentioned at all on the next but one. The first attempt at a list was made by R. H. Shepherd in 1881, and revised in 1887 as

an appendix to Sultan Stork and Other Stories (pp. 221-260). Shepherd lists seventy-nine items as Thackeray's. This volume was followed in 1888 by C. P. Johnson's The Early Writings of William Makepeace Thackeray, which gives no bibliography, but includes a brief discussion of some possible attributions before 1840 (chap. x, pp. 221-260). John P. Anderson contributed a sketchy and inaccurate bibliography as an appendix to Herman Merivale and Frank Marzial's Life of William Makepeace Thackeray (London, 1891), which includes but seventy-five items in Fraser's. Lewis S. Benjamin ("Lewis Melville") published a bibliography in his Life of William Makepeace Thackeray (1899) which he expanded and revised in his William Makepeace Thackeray (2 vols. [London, 1910], II, 143-376). This ambitious and comprehensive listing includes eighty-nine Fraser's articles as Thackeray's and fourteen as possibly his. In 1919 Henry Sayre Van Duzer's A Thackeray Library also listed eighty-nine positive attributions, although four of them were different from Benjamin's, and included twelve as possible. Malcolm Elwin's bibliography in Thackeray: A Personality (London, 1932, pp. 380-382) adds one new article, but is spotted by occasional careless errors; he lists eighty-seven items as Thackeray's and eight as doubtful.

The two most recent studies appeared about thirty years ago. (Gordon N. Ray in his recent biography is content to mention the bibliographical problem in passing.[2]) Harold S. Gulliver's Thackeray's Literary Apprenticeship (Valdosta [Georgia], 1934) includes two lists of articles and some discussion (pp. 66-89). Although he attempts to weigh evidence with some care, in fact he tends to include items for which there is no evidence. He gives ninety-four contributions to Thackeray and adds eighteen as possible. Miriam M. H. Thrall in Rebellious Fraser's (N. Y., 1934) is even more generous. Unaware of the detailed evidence of Thackeray's activities and interests in the early 1830's which would appear in The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray,[3] she credits him with much additional writing: she lists ninety items as Thackeray's, four as probably by him, and twenty-eight as probably by him in collaboration with various other writers.

None of these bibliographies can be relied on wholly, though in most of them the major works are listed accurately. They are, in general,

rendered undependable by their inclusion of doubtful works with those of unquestioned authenticity, and by the excessive number of "possible" or "probable" attributions, which leave the reader in some perplexity about the nature of evidence which has been trusted. I do not mean to slight the labor which has gone into these bibliographies, for all studies of Thackeray (including this one) lean heavily on them; but the listing below has the double advantage of profiting by the recent work of Gordon N. Ray and Walter Houghton,[4] and thus has greater claims to accuracy than earlier ones. I have also attempted a fresh evaluation of all the evidence with the particular intention of reducing the number of doubtful attributions, and establishing a dependable bibliography of Thackeray's contributions to Fraser's. The second list in this article includes eighty-eight items which are beyond question by Thackeray, as well as four for which there is some substantial evidence that they may be by Thackeray. I include in the first ("disallowed") list all items which have been attributed to Thackeray, but for which there is no reliable evidence.

Perhaps the most important reason for the confusion of which I have been speaking has been the long delay in both the publication of Thackeray's Letters and the writing of a dependable biography;[5] certainly we are concerned here with the clarification of one of many biographical and bibliographical problems which clog the path of Thackeray studies. But there are two specific difficulties which tend to confuse the particular question of the Fraser's contributions: there is much legitimate doubt about Thackeray's connection with the magazine from 1832 to 1837, and there are large differences in practice in respect to the validity of internal evidence in determining authorship of anonymous work. It is necessary to comment briefly on both of these problems before presenting the bibliography.

Thackeray began contributing regularly to Fraser's in November 1837, using the first of what was to become a dozen or so fanciful pseudonyms, Charles Yellowplush, Esq. Before that date he may have written a number of anonymous pieces, but the only contribution of which we can be sure is the ballad "Il était un Roi d'Yvetot," which was included in the rambling "Fraser Papers for May [1834]" and was

later revised for publication in Thackeray's Paris Sketch Book (1840). Most of the items in dispute were printed anonymously in Fraser's from 1830 to 1838, and have posed almost irresistible temptations to bibliographers to credit the good ones to their man. With so little evidence available, it is easy to give too much weight to the few facts we have which connect Thackeray to the periodical.

Fraser's was founded in 1830 by "Doctor" William Maginn (1793-1842), along with Hugh Fraser, and James Fraser, the publisher. Maginn was the editor and guiding spirit of the magazine until drink and debts began seriously to limit his effectiveness in 1837.[6] Thackeray records in his diary that he met Maginn 16 April 1832, and subsequently came to know, like, and respect him.[7] Much has been made of this connection, and it does seem reasonable that Maginn would have welcomed contributions from Thackeray's pen. In addition, a portrait of "The Fraserians" by Daniel Maclise, published in the January 1835 issue, shows Thackeray seated between Percival Banks and Jack Churchill, "Maginn's special aides-de-camp."[8] But to the fact of the Maclise portrait, so often cited, must be added the fact that a list of "Fraserians" published in January, 1836 (p. 4) fails to include Thackeray, although it is apparently quite comprehensive.

The evidence, then, for Thackeray's association with Fraser's before 1837 is quite slim. It is altogether possible that "Il était un Roi d'Yvetot" and a portion of esprit de corps were sufficient for his inclusion in the portrait — which also included James Hogg and several others not in London, and the deceased Reverend Edward Irving and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.[9] And it is one thing to say that Thackeray and Maginn were close friends, even professional friends ("Dr Maginn called & took me to the Standard shewing me the mysteries of printing & writing leading articles, with him all day till 4"[10]) and quite another to assign Thackeray articles in, or leading editorial functions for, the magazine. All the same, it is possible that Thackeray published more than the one ballad in Fraser's during this time, and perhaps some day more evidence will appear to allow us to add these items to the Thackeray bibliography. At the present time, however, only internal evidence can be brought to substantiate the many attributions that have been made to Thackeray for this period.

That internal evidence is an untrustworthy guide to authorship has been demonstrated so frequently it can virtually rest as an indisputable principle for the bibliographer of nineteenth century periodicals. Mr. Walter Houghton has discovered about six thousand contributors writing for periodicals from 1825-1900; with so many magazine writers at work, it is usually quite unrealistic to attribute unsigned work to any one author because of "characteristic" language, or sentence structure, or sentiments. Certainly such internal evidence is of considerable importance to help support or deny an attribution based on some other source, but only rarely can it stand by itself as any sort of proof. In many cases "internal evidence" becomes a matter of intuition and guesswork, and too often it emerges as a selective process to support a presupposition. The extraordinary diversity of opinion among Thackeray bibliographers is perhaps enough evidence of the unreliability of internal evidence, but it would be easy to multiply instances of obvious errors stemming from this cause (see list of disallowed attributions below, particularly June, 1834; December, 1836; and January, 1840). But perhaps the history of "Elizabeth Brownrigge" (Aug.-Sept. 1832) can stand as an example of the inadequacy of internal evidence and an illustration of how it can mislead those who rely on it too heavily.

"Elizabeth Brownrigge" is a parody of the popular novels of criminal life and has seemed to many critics to foreshadow Thackeray's "Catherine" and "Barry Lyndon" — both published some years later in Fraser's, and both inspired in part by Eugene Aram and other Newgate novels. "Elizabeth Brownrigge" is assigned to Thackeray with all confidence by three of the bibliographers (Shepherd, Anderson, Van Duzer) and with various expressions of uncertainty by three others (Benjamin, Elwin, Gulliver), and it has been reprinted in a number of Thackeray editions.[11] One would therefore expect to find some evidence that connects Thackeray to the parody. But all that can be said for this connection has been summarized with his usual good sense by George Saintsbury: "While I certainly shall never be so rash as to say Thackeray did not write it, I can see not the slightest evidence that he did."[12] We might go a step further and add that neither Thackeray's diary for 1832, nor a letter to his mother dated 8 August 1832 mention "Elizabeth Brownrigge", though both of them

speak of matters that would have been of much less importance or interest to them.[13] It is against this background of no evidence for his authorship and strong presumptive evidence against the possibility, that the attributions on internal evidence begin to seem forced.

Dr. John Brown, who came to know Thackeray intimately in 1851,[14] first associated "Elizabeth Brownrigge" with Thackeray in a memorial article in The North British Review (Feb., 1864). But he claimed no word from the author as his authority, saying only "the internal evidence seems to us strong." This reasoning was supported by Algernon Swinburne, who wrote R. H. Shepherd, "Just before 'Catherine' [i.e., seven years before] appeared another burlesque and grotesque horror — 'Elizabeth Brownrigge,' a story in two parts, which ought to be Thackeray's, for, if it is not, he stole the idea, and to some extent the style, of his parodies on novels of criminal life, from this first sketch of the kind."[15] (Both Maginn and Douglas Jerrold had previously published similar parodies). Most recently, Ernest Boll has presented a closely argued case for Thackeray's authorship from internal evidence:

Such a "proof" tends to overlook the fact that different authors may have similar styles, and we must, remembering Calvin Hoffman's "proof" that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays,[17] consider such a method with some suspicion. Starting from this most shaky premise, Mr. Boll goes on to give a long set of parallels, with interpretations ranging from the routine (the parody is the work of "a writer to whom satire was congenial") to the perceptive (in the parody we find a sympathy for the villain similar to that in Barry Lyndon and Catherine) to the absurd (two similar episodes join "Elizabeth Brownrigge" and The Adventures of Philip [1861] — in both a returning lover fondles his loved one's dog — and this resemblance leads to "the conclusion that some experience in Thackeray's youth furnished a common origin for these two episodes"). Mr. Boll concludes that he is "convinced" that Thackeray wrote "Elizabeth Brownrigge."

But the internal evidence itself has led to other conclusions. Benjamin, after including the parody in the 1899 edition of his biography, changed his mind in his 1910 revision. There he summarized the evidence to date and found it inconclusive, finally abandoning the theory because "Elizabeth Brownrigge" is so clearly out of position in the Thackeray canon: "If he did write 'Elizabeth Brownrigge' in July 1832, how is it that he did not follow up this ambitious start?"[18] (But, no doubt through some oversight, the parody remained listed [as doubtful] in the appended bibliography). Indeed, the internal evidence which seems so indisputably to stamp the piece as Thackeray's to Brown, Swinburne, and Boll, and which Benjamin and C. P. Johnson[19] (and I) consider quite inconclusive, seems to Thrall to identify it as William Maginn's[20] and to M. H. Spielmann to establish it as Douglas Jerrold's.[21] We cannot take the space here to discuss in detail the complexities of these arguments, but the one fact that seems to emerge beyond question from the long dispute is that the method of "proving" authorship by internal evidence is quite untrustworthy as a basis for attribution unsupported by some other kind of evidence. When Thackeray wrote to his mother, apologizing for his failure to send her copies of his newspaper articles, "Most likely you'll see the best of the articles in Galignani and of course will put down all the good ones to me,"[22] he showed an awareness of the problems of internal evidence that his bibliographers would do well to heed.

II

Disallowed Attributions

The following items have been attributed to Thackeray (as author or collaborator), usually on internal evidence; the name of the bibliographer who has made the attribution follows each entry, with a question mark indicating some doubt on his part. Where there is no discussion, it is because the evidence to support the attribution is too scanty for consideration.

• 1831 February (iii, 95-113) The Novels of the Season. Gulliver?, Van Duzer?
• August (iv, 8-25) Novels of the Season. Batch the Second. Gulliver?, Van Duzer?
• October (iv, 308-310) Scenes in the Law Courts. Gulliver?
• 1832 August (vi, 67-88) Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale. Gulliver?, Benjamin?, Elwin?, Shepherd, Anderson, Van Duzer [See discussion above]
• September (vi, 127-148) Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale. (Concl.)
• December (vi, 653-672) The Annuals. Van Duzer?, Elwin?
• 1833 January (vii, 65-68) The Contested Election. Thrall?
• February (vii, 240-250) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• March (vii, 367-376) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• April (vii, 498-506) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• May (vii, 620-632) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• June (vii, 658-667) The Poets of the Day. Thrall?
• July (viii, 36-44) New Edition of Rejected Addresses. (review) Thrall?
• July (viii, 118-126) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• September (viii, 360-375) The Poets of the Day. Thrall?
• September (viii, 376-384) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• October (viii, 499-510) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• November (viii, 536-556) Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald. (review) Thrall?
• November (viii, 613-621) Lady Morgan's Dramatic Scenes. (review) Thrall?
• December (viii, 658-670) The Poets of the Day. Thrall?
• 1834 January (ix, 121-122) A Paraphrase of Anacreon, Benjamin?, Gulliver?
• February (ix, 224-240) Allan Cunningham's Fifty Years. (review) Thrall?
• February (ix, 240-252) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• February (ix, 248-249) Si j'étais petit oiseau. Vous veillerez. (poems) Thrall?
• March (ix, 279-287) Hints for a History of Highwaymen. (review) Johnson?, Benjamin?, Gulliver?, Thrall. [Thrall's argument, pp. 254-256, deserves mention. In addition to

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  much internal evidence, she notes that a long quotation from this review appears in a review of Jack Sheppard (Fraser's, February, 1840), which is probably (Thrall feels surely) by Thackeray. But she is speaking from her erroneous supposition that Thackeray was an active Fraserian in 1834 and a too great readiness to accept an editorial "we" as a personal one. Thackeray gave up The National Standard ("by wh I shall have had the pleasure of losing £200 — It has increased in sale about 20 in the last 2 months —")[23] in February 1834 and "seems to have devoted most of his time to the study of painting."[24] His letters before February 1834 are filled with expressions of annoyance at the time-consuming nature of his work on the Standard, e.g., "The only fault I find with the N. Standard, dear Mother is that the end of the day, I am but ill disposed after writing & reading so much to read another syllable or to write another line."[25] It is, then, possible that Thackeray wrote this review, but it remains an unlikely possibility.]
• April (ix, 456-487) A Dozen of Novels. Shepherd?, Benjamin?, Van Duzer?, Gulliver?, Elwin?, Thrall? [Thrall, p. 256, argues from internal evidence that part, at least, of this article was by Maginn.]
• June (ix, 724-738) High-ways and Low-ways; or, Ainsworth's Dictionary, with Notes by Turpin. Johnson?, Benjamin?, Van Duzer?, Gulliver?, Elwin? [Thrall, p. 247, reprints part of a letter from Ainsworth, attributing this review to Churchill.[26]]
• September (x, 338-364) The Poets of the Day. Thrall?
• September (x, 365-378) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• October (x, 448-462) Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More. (review) Thrall?
• 1835 January (xi, 59-65) France, Social, Literary, Political. (review) Thrall?
• April (xi, 465-490) A Quintette of Novels. (review) Thrall?
• May (xi, 586-609) A Decade of Novels and Nouvellettes. (review) Thrall?, Gulliver?, Van Duzer?
• June (xi, 708-728) The Poets of the Day. Thrall?
• October (xii, 409-415) Washington Irving's Miscellanies. (review) Thrall?
• 1836 February (xiii, 209-223) Paris and the Parisians in 1835. (review) Johnson?, Benjamin?, Gulliver?, Thrall?
• April (xiii, 488-493) Another Caw from the Rookwood.—Turpin Out Again. Johnson?, Benjamin?, Gulliver? [Thrall, pp. 247-248, assigns this review to Maginn. It was printed in his Miscellaneous Writings (N. Y., 1855-57) apparently on the authority of James Fraser's publishing-house list.]
• June (xiii, 707-715) A Letter from Cambridge to Oliver Yorke,

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  about the Art of Plucking, &c. [Signed "T. G."] Johnson?, Benjamin?, Gulliver?
• July (xiv, 117-122) A Second Letter from Cambridge to Oliver Yorke, Esq. Pluck Examination Questions. [Signed "T. G."] Johnson?, Benjamin?, Gulliver?
• August (xiv, 180-182) A Postscript to the Second Letter from Cambridge. Johnson?, Benjamin?, Gulliver? [Signed "T. G." Thrall, pp. 250-252, using internal evidence, assigns these three Cambridge articles to Robert Avis Willmott. "T. G." certainly does have opinions quite different from Thackeray's.]
• September (xiv, 298-314) The Jew of York. Johnson?, Benjamin?, Gulliver? [The only reason this has been assigned to Thackeray is that its title suggests the author of Rebecca and Rowena. The two pieces are quite unlike each other.]
• December (xiv, 710-719) Mr. Grant's Great Metropolis. (review) Johnson?, Thrall? [This review was printed in Maginn's Miscellaneous Writings, (N. Y., 1855-57), v. But Thrall, neglecting her convincing argument for the authority of this edition (at least for longer articles) on p. 248, feels that Thackeray may have had a hand in it, and lists it on her appended bibliography as "probably" by both.]
• 1837 January (xv, 33-48) A Scourging Soliloquy about the Annuals. Gulliver? [This is by the author of the above Cambridge articles of June, July, and August 1836 ("T. G."). Thrall assigns it to Willmott on internal evidence.]
• April (xv, 498-514) One or Two Words on One or Two Books. Johnson?, Benjamin?, Gulliver? [Thrall, pp. 252-253, using internal evidence, assigns this review to John A. Heraud.]
• April (xv, 528-553) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• May (xv, 654-679) The Fraser Papers. Thrall?
• 1838 March (xvii, 338) Sir William Molesworth. [This has been attributed to Thackeray only by Mrs. M. G. Fawcett, Life of Sir William Molesworth (N. Y., 1901), pp. 16-17. Almost all of the Gallery of Illustious Literary Characters — eighty-one brief notices accompanying Maclise drawings — appear to have been written by Maginn (see Thrall, pp. 258-259).]
• April (xvii, 468-470) The Reverend Sydney Smith. Benjamin? [This attribution is improbable for reasons given above, March 1838].
• October (xviii, 471-481) Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster; with Elucidations, Notes, etc., By various Eds. Johnson, Benjamin, Van Duzer, Gulliver, Thrall, Elwin. (Reprinted occasionally in collected editions of Thackeray's works.) [This puzzling work has been assigned to Thackeray on the strength of a letter signed "Fitzroy Yellowplush" which appears at the opening of the second part (p. 597) to deny his authorship. The "Passages" is in fact a parody of Lady Charlotte Campbell Bury's Diary Illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth (1838)

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  — called "Lady Carry-the-Candle's Diary" by the parodist (p. 472) and a succès de scandale at the time — and the confusing editorial apparatus of the original is consistently burlesqued. "Yellowplush" had reviewed Lady Bury's gossipy Diary brilliantly in March, 1838 for Fraser's ("Skimmings from the Dairy of George IV"), and it seems improbable that Thackeray would descend to this feeble writing on the same subject a few months later. Although the letter on p. 597 is facetious, and is roughly parallel to the deliberately confusing editorial tricks about authorship, there is every reason to believe that Thackeray intended the letter to mean what it seems to mean — that he did not write this parody and did not want it attributed to him. See my "Thackeray, Dolly Duster, and Lady Charlotte Campbell Bury," RES, n.s., xvi (Feb., 1965), 35-43.]
• November (xviii, 597-611) Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster; with Elucidation, Notes, etc., By various Eds. (Concl.)
• 1839 June (xix, 710-716) Paris Pastimes for the Month of May. Johnson, Benjamin, Van Duzer, Gulliver, Thrall. [See below, September, 1839.]
• August (xx, 181-188) A Handful of Trash. Van Duzer?
• August (xx, 212-223) The Paris Rebels of the Twelfth of May. Johnson, Benjamin, Gulliver, Thrall. [See below, September, 1839]
• September (xx, 348-359) The Fêtes of July. Johnson, Benjamin, Van Duzer, Gulliver, Thrall, Elwin. [This article is signed "You Know Who", as are two others of this year: "Paris Pastimes" of June, and "Paris Rebels" of August (listed above). All three have been assigned to Thackeray as the result of an erroneous identification of the Fraser's "The Fêtes of July" with another article of precisely the same title written by Thackeray for the Corsair (U. S. A.), 5 October 1839 and reprinted by him in his Paris Sketch Book (1840). (See, e.g., Benjamin, II, 170). Despite the near unanimity of previous bibliographers, the articles are wholly different, except for title, and so stand as strong evidence against Thackeray's authorship of the three in Fraser's.]
• 1840 January (xxi, 53-70) Recollections of Germany. Benjamin, Gulliver (listed, but a note adds that "it is not by Thackeray"). [This article is reprinted in part in R. P. Gillies, Memoirs of a Literary Veteran (London, 1851), II, chap. xiii.]
• August (xxii, 143-149) Epistle to the Literati. (xv, xvi) Van Duzer, Elwin (xv only).
• 1841 January (xxiii, 101-108) A Batch of Almancks for 1841. Van Duzer?
• February (xxiii, 169-183) The Tower of London. (review) Van Duzer?, Elwin?
• 1842 October (xxvi, 466-476) Some of the Picture-Galleries of England. Van Duzer? [This is the second part of an article begun in September (xxvi, 335-347). If Thackeray wrote one half he ought to have written the other. But there is no evidence.]

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• 1846 January (xxxiii, 85-96) Titmarsh's Tour Through Turkeydom. Benjamin?, Gulliver. [This is a review of Thackeray's Irish Sketch Book. The author shows some familiarity with Thackeray's pseudonyms, in Fraser's and elsewhere, but it seems unlikely that Thackeray himself would be responsible for such effusive and badly-written praise of himself. In addition, a letter to his mother (Letters, II, 229) speaks of the reviews of the book in some detail, without mentioning that he himself (as the attribution supposes) wrote one of them. See also the "Titmarsh" review listed below (Jan., 1847), where Thackeray seems to have asked G. H. Lewes to write about Mrs. Perkins's Ball out of a reluctance to review his own work.]
• March (xxxiii, 308-316) Milliners' Apprentices. Van Duzer?

III

Thackeray's Contributions to Fraser's

Four of the following items are listed as doubtful: "A Word on the Annuals," December, 1837; "Horae Catnachianae," April, 1839; "William Ainsworth and Jack Sheppard," February, 1840; and "Mr. Thackeray in the United States," January, 1853. The degree of doubt is noted under each entry, but the four are included in this list because significant (if not conclusive) evidence points to Thackeray in each case.

Under each entry is noted the evidence for the attribution, and the location of the piece (if collected) in the most accessible collected edition, The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, with biographical introductions by Lady Ritchie, Centenary Biographical edition, 26 vols. (Smith, Elder, & Co., London, 1910-1911), called below Works. Nine contributions were not printed in that edition, but were included in The Works of Thackeray, Barry Furniss Centenary edition [ed. Lewis Benjamin], 20 vols. (Macmillan & Co., London, 1911), called below Furniss ed. Four of the articles below have not been reprinted.

The evidence, unless otherwise noted, consists of references to Gordon N. Ray's edition of The Letters, signature by known pseudonyms of Thackeray, or publication in editions of which Thackeray approved (as the Paris Sketch Book of 1840, or the Miscellanies of 1855).

• 1834 May (ix, 617-18) Il était un Roi d'Yvetot. [Rewritten as "This King of Brentford" for George Cruikshank's Omnibus, No. 8, 1841, and included in Paris Sketch Book (1840) and Miscellanies (1855), vol. 1.] Works, XV, 21-29.
• 1837 November (xvi, 644-649) The Yellowplush Correspondence. Fashnable Fax and Polite Annygoats. By Charles Yellowplush, Esq. [See Letters, I, 348.] Works, XXV, 63-73.

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• [?] December (xvi, 757-763) A Word on the Annuals. Works, XXV, 74-86. [The only evidence consists of a footnote, p. 760, to "Our friend Mr. Yellowplush" who "has made inquiries" about authorship of one of the tales in the Keepsake. One would like to accept this review as Thackeray's, as have all previous bibliographers,[27] for it is brilliant writing which expresses his known sentiments. And the "Yellowplush" correspondence, which began in November and was to continue monthly January-August in 1838, seems strangely absent from this December issue. However, it is altogether possible that the editor added the footnote to another writer's review — and other Fraser's contributors could write brilliantly — to remind his readers that more "Yellowplush" papers were to come. If we credit the above footnote, what are we to do with the one on the preceding page, which maintains that the author "obtained his intimate knowledge of Persian in a forty-three years' residence at Ispahan"? Thus, tempting as it is to assign this article to Thackeray, it must remain doubtful.]
• 1838 January (xvii, 39-49) The Yellowplush Correspondence. No. II. Miss Shum's Husband. Works, V, 2-25.
• January (xvii, 79-92) Our Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837. Furniss ed., VIII, 26-48. [Thackeray wrote sections i, ii, and iii of this series of brief notices: Mrs. Trollope's The Vicar of Wrexhill, Bulwer Lytton's Ernest Maltravers, and L. E. Landon's Ethel Churchill. The other sections of the article are by another hand. See Letters, I, 514.]
• February (xvii, 243-250) The Yellowplush Correspondence. No. III. Dimond Cut Dimond. Works, V, 26-41.
• March (xvii, 279-290) Half-a-Crown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge. Furniss ed., VIII, 75-94. [See Letters, I, 407, 515.]
• March (xvii, 353-359) The Yellowplush Correspondence. No. IV. Skimmings from "The Dairy of George IV." Works, V, 137-150.
• April (xvii, 404-408) The Yellowplush Correspondence. No. V. Foring Parts. Works, V, 42-52.
• May (xvii, 577-579) Four German Ditties. Works, XV, 165-170. [Included in the Miscellanies (1855), vol. I.]
• May (xvii, 616-627) The Yellowplush Correspondence. No. VI. Mr. Deuceace at Paris. Works, V, 53-77.
• June (xvii, 734-741) The Yellowplush Correspondence. Mr. Deuceace at Paris. No. II. Works, V, 78-95.
• June (xvii, 758-764) Strictures on Pictures. A Letter from Michael Angelo Titmarsh, Esq. Works, XXV, 111-124.
• July (xviii, 59-71) The Yellowplush Correspondence. The End of Mr. Deuceace's History. Works, V, 96-124.
• August (xviii, 195-200) The Yellowplush Correspondence. Mr. Yellowplush's Ajew. Works, V, 125-136.

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• December (xviii, 687-693) The Painter's Bargain. Communicated by Michael Angelo Titmarsh, Esq. Works, XXII, 66-81.
• 1839 January (xix, 57-67) Our Annual Execution. Furniss ed., VIII, 182-201. [Two ballads from this review of "The Keepsake" for 1839 and other similar annuals are reprinted in Miscellanies, 1855 ("The Battle-Axe Polacca" and "The Almack's Adieu").]
• [?] April (xix, 407-424) Horae Catnachianae. Not reprinted. [This review of popular ballads opens with the explanation that it is the sequel to "Half-a-Crown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge" (March, 1838). It also includes a reference to "our friend Mr. Yellowplush's" opinions (p. 416). The attribution is probable, but still open to doubt.]
• May (xix, 604-617) Catherine: A Story. By Ikey Solomons, Esq. Junior. Works, XXIV. [See Letters, I, 407, 408, 412.]
• June (xix, 694-709) Catherine: A Story. (Cont.)
• June (xix, 743-750) A Second Lecture on the Fine Arts, By Michael Angelo Titmarsh, Esq. Works, XXV, 161-176.
• July (xx, 98-112) Catherine: A Story. (Cont.)
• August (xx, 224-232) Catherine: A Story. (Cont.)
• October (xx, 447-459) The French Plutarch. No. 1, Cartouche; No. 2, Poinsinet. Works, XXII, 82-94, 201-215. [Included in Paris Sketch Book, 1840.]
• November (xx, 531-548) Catherine: A Story. (Cont.)
• December (xx, 679-688) On the French School of Painting. Works, XXII, 45-65. [Signed "M. A. T." Included in Paris Sketch Book, 1840.]
• December (xx, 715-727) The Great Cossack Epic of Demetrius Rigmarolovicz. Translated by a Lady. Works, XV, 91-114. [This ballad is retitled "The Legend of St. Sophia of Kioff" in Miscellanies, 1855. See Letters, I, 408; IV, 32.]
• 1840 January (xxi, 71-80) Epistles to the Literati. No. XIII. Ch-----s Y-ll-wpl-sh Esq. to Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, Bart. Works, V, 151-170.
• January (xxi, 106-115) Catherine: A Story. (Cont.)
• February (xxi, 200-212) Catherine: A Story. (Concl.)
• [?] February (xxi, 227-245) William Ainsworth and Jack Sheppard. Not Reprinted. [Although Thrall, p. 255, presents persuasive internal evidence, supported by her unexcelled knowledge of the opinions of the staff of Fraser's, this review remains the most doubtful item on this list.]
• March (xxi, 332-345) Epistles to the Literati. No. XIV. On French Criticism of the English, and Notably in the Affair of the Vengeur. By Nelson Tattersall Lee Scupper, Esq., Late Ensign in Her Majesty's Horse-Marine, to - - - - - Labédollière, Esq. Not reprinted. [This defense of Carlyle's true account of the sinking of the Vengeur was first attributed to Thackeray by Gordon N. Ray

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  (Letters, I, cvii) who quotes a fragment of a letter to James Fraser as evidence. This is its first appearance in any bibliography.]
• June (xxi, 677-689) A Shabby Genteel Story. Works, XVIII. [See Letters, I, 469, 488.]
• June (xxi, 720-732) A Pictorial Rhapsody By Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Works, XXV, 177-202. [See Letters, I, 450.]
• July (xxii, 90-101) A Shabby Genteel Story. (Cont.)
• July (xxii, 112-124) A Pictorial Rhapsody: Concluded. And Followed by a Remarkable Statement of Facts by Mrs. Barbara. Works, XXV, 203-226.
• August (xxii, 150-158) Going to See a Man Hanged. Works, XXVI, 417-434. [Signed "W. M. T." See Letters, I, 453.]
• August (xxii, 226-237) A Shabby Genteel Story. (Cont.)
• October (xxii, 399-414) A Shabby Genteel Story. (Concl.)
• 1841 June (xxiii, 710-725) Memorials of Gourmandising. By M. A. Titmarsh. Works, XXV, 392-421. [See Letters, II, 281.]
• July (xxiv, 98-111) On Men and Pictures. À propos of a Walk in the Louvre. Paris, June, 1841. Works, XXV, 238-264. [Signed "M. A. T." See Letters, II, 19.]
• August (xxiv, 208-217) Men and Coats. Works, XXV, 422-441. [A "blushing white satin skirt" calls the author "horrid Mr. Titmarsh." See also Letters, II, 33.]
• September (xxiv, 324-343) The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond. Edited and Illustrated by Sam's Cousin, Michael Angelo. Works, VI.
• September (xxiv, 352-358) Notes on the North What-d'ye-callem Election. Being the Personal Narrative of Napoleon Putnam Wiggins, of Passimaquoddy. Not reprinted. [See Letters, II, 27, 30, 33. Only Gulliver and Elwin have listed this parody of Nathaniel P. Willis, based on Thackeray's experiences in June and July, 1841.]
• October (xxiv, 389-399) The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond. (Cont.)
• October (xxiv, 413-427) Notes on the North What-d'ye-callem Election. (Concl.)
• November (xxiv, 594-611) The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond. (Cont.)
• December (xxiv, 717-734) The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond. (Concl.)
• 1842 March (xxv, 342-352) Dickens in France. Works, XXVI, 500-520. [See Letters, II, 41, 45.]
• June (xxv, 707-721) Fitz-Boodle's Confessions. Works, XXIV, 197-220. [See Letters, II, 54.]
• July (xxvi, 43-60) Professions By George Fitz-Boodle. Being Appeals to the Unemployed Younger Sons of the Nobility. Works, XXIV, 258-285.

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• October (xxvi, 395-405) Fitz-Boodle's Confessions. Miss Löwe. Works, XXVI, 365-388.
• 1843 January (xxvii, 76-84) Confessions of George Fitz-Boodle. Dorothea. Works, XXIV, 221-235.
• February (xxvii, 214-224) Confessions of George Fitz-Boodle. Ottilia. Works, XXIV, 236-257.
• March (xxvii, 349-361) Confessions of George Fitz-Boodle. Men's Wives. [I.] Mr. and Mrs. Frank Berry. Works, V, 306-331.
• April (xxvii, 465-475) Confessions of George Fitz-Boodle. Men's Wives. II. The Ravenswing. Works, V, 173-194.
• May (xxvii, 597-608) Men's Wives. By George Fitz-Boodle. II. The Ravenswing. (Cont.) Works, V, 195-218.
• June (xxvii, 723-733) Men's Wives. By George Fitz-Boodle. II. The Ravenswing. (Cont.) Works, V, 219-238.
• August (xxviii, 188-205) Men's Wives. By George Fitz-Boodle. II. The Ravenswing. (Cont.) Works, V, 239-272.
• September (xxviii, 321-337) Men's Wives. By George Fitz-Boodle. II. The Ravenswing. (Concl.) Works, V, 273-305.
• September (xxviii, 349-362) Jerome Paturot. With Considerations on Novels in General — In a Letter from M. A. Titmarsh. Works, XXV, 268-284.
• October (xxviii, 413-425) Bluebeard's Ghost. By M. A. Titmarsh. Works, XXVI, 389-414.
• October (xxviii, 494-504) Men's Wives. By George Fitz-Boodle. III. Dennis Haggarty's Wife. Works, V, 332-352.
• November (xxviii, 581-592) Men's Wives. By George Fitz-Boodle. IV. The ------'s [Executioner's] Wife. Furniss ed., X, 253-270.
• December (xxviii, 702-712) Grant in Paris. By Fitz-Boodle. Furniss ed., VIII, 254-271.
• 1844 January (xxix, 35-51) The Luck of Barry Lyndon; A Romance of the Last Century. By Fitz-Boodle. Works, VII. (Revised.)
• February (xxix, 153-169) A Box of Novels. By Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Furniss ed., VIII, 272-300. [A review of Tom Burke of 'Ours,' by Charles Lever; L. S. D., or, Accounts of Irish Heirs, by Samuel Lover; The Miser's Son. A Tale; The Burgomaster of Berlin, from the German of Willebald Alexis; A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. See Letters, II, 135, 137, 139.]
• February (xxix, 187-202) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Cont.)
• March (xxix, 318-330) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Cont.)
• March (xxix, 361-363) Titmarsh's Carmen Lilliense. Works, XV, 115-119. [See Letters, II, 121, 143.]
• April (xxix, 391-410) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Cont.)
• May (xxix, 517-528) Little Travels and Road-side Sketches. By Titmarsh. I. From Richmond in Surrey to Brussels in Belgium. Works, XXII, 325-349.
• May (xxix, 548-563) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Cont.)
• June (xxix, 700-716) May Gambols; or, Titmarsh in the Picture-Galleries.

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  Works, XXV, 285-316.
• June (xxix, 723-738) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Cont.)
• July (xxx, 93-108) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Cont.)
• August (xxx, 227-242) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Cont.)
• September (xxx, 353-364) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Cont.)
• October (xxx, 465-471) Little Travels and Road-side Sketches. By Titmarsh. II. Ghent-Bruges. Works, XXII, 350-363.
• November (xxx, 584-597) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Cont.)
• December (xxx, 666-683) The Luck of Barry Lyndon. (Concl.)
• 1845 January (xxxi, 94-96) Little Travels and Road-side Sketches. By Titmarsh. III. Waterloo. Works, XXII, 364-370.
• June (xxxi, 713-724) Picture Gossip: In a Letter from Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Works, XXV, 317-339. [See Letters, II, 191.]
• November (xxxii, 584-593) Barmecide Banquets, with Joseph Bregion and Anne Miller. George Savage Fitz-Boodle, Esquire, to the Rev. Lionel Gaster. Furniss ed., X, 423-437.
• December (xxxii, 744-748) About a Christmas Book. In a Letter from Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Furniss ed., VIII, 323-331.
• 1846 January (xxxiii, 120) Ronsard to His Mistress. Works, XV, 66-67. [Signed "Michael Angelo Titmarsh."]
• March (xxxiii, 332-342) A Brother of the Press on the History of a Literary Man, Laman Blanchard, and the Chances of the Literary Profession. In a Letter to the Reverend Francis Sylvester at Rome, from M. A. Titmarsh, Esq. Works, XXV, 340-356. [See Letters, II, 230.]
• April (xxxiii, 495-502) On Some Illustrated Children's Books. By Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Works, XXV, 357-372.
• August (xxxiv, 237-245) Proposals for a Continuation of Ivanhoe. In a Letter to Monsieur Alexandre Dumas, by Monsieur Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Works, XIV, 109-175. (Revised and expanded.)
• September (xxxiv, 359-367) Proposals for a Continuation of Ivanhoe. In a Letter to Monsieur Alexandre Dumas, by Monsieur Michael Angelo Titmarsh. (Concl.)
• 1847 January (xxxv, 111-126) A Grumble about the Christmas-Books. By Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Furniss ed., VIII, 364-390. [This review of nine Christmas books, including The Battle of Life by Dickens and Mrs. Perkins's Ball by "Titmarsh," seems to have been in some measure a collaboration with George Henry Lewes. In January, Lewes received £9/9 for "'Cayetano' (Agnes) & Titmarsh" from Fraser's.[28] Lewes could not have written the entire review, for, internal evidence aside, Agnes Lewis received from Fraser's £9/7 for fiction in the March issue of about the same length as the "Cayetano" tale in January's issue. (See also Letters, II, 264, for clear evidence of Thackeray's authorship.) Lewes must have contributed a paragraph or so to the "Titmarsh" review for the few shillings extra he received. But it is hard to say where

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  these lines are: the article is unified throughout by the style and personality of "Titmarsh", which is nowhere more characteristic than in the single paragraph devoted to his own book. But Lewes could have imitated the "Titmarsh" style, and the most likely explanation is that he did so in response to some delicacy on Thackeray's part about speaking of his own work under the "Titmarsh" byline.]
• 1853 [?] January (xlvii, 100-103) Mr. Thackeray in the United States. To the Editor of Fraser's Magazine. [Signed "John Small."] Works, XXV, 457-463. [This brief article begins with some facetious remarks about Thackeray's reception in the United States, then gives a seven-paragraph parody of a New York newspaper description of his person and manners, and concludes with an excerpt from Thackeray's last lecture in New York (December 6, 1852) — highly complimentary to his hosts. Although the signature "John Small" is an unlikely pseudonym, it is hard to imagine anyone else writing the parody. The internal evidence, then, is very convincing, but, without external support, the authorship of the article must remain in doubt.][29]

Notes