Evening star., 1933-10-28
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY SARAH C. BOWERMAN.
THACKERAY. BY g. U. Ellis. Great
Lives Series. New York: The Mac
milan Co.

THACKERAY. BY g. U. Ellis. Great
Lives Series. New York: The Mac
milan Co.
Many Lives" of Thackeray have been
written which treated exhaustively his
early wild oats" his domestic tragedy
his long struggle for literary recogni-
tion/ and his fnal arrival at the leader
ship among British novelists which
eclipsed the popular Dickens. Anthony
Life or Thackeray" in the English
Men of Letters" series. Thackeray's own
letters and those Of his daughter, Anne
Thackeray Ritchie, with his novels,
"Pendennis," THE Newcomes" and
"Lovel the Widower," contribute the
best material for any biography Of him
These have been used by Mr.. Ellis
whose problem has been to select and
condense for his small volume and at
the same time to revive a personality
which was the subject of more criticism
than praise during the early Victorian
| era, but has remained among the great
est in the judgment Of time. Mr.. Ellis
has performed his task well and q very
animated Thackeray moves through his
pages.
The only child of a widowed mother,
like Pendennis, Thackeray was, also
like Pennis, badly spoiled. An income,
not large but adequate, enabled him on
reaching his majority to lead the life
OF gay young buck" and to dabbie in
art in Paris, where there were a good
cuisine. cheap wine. pretty women and
a gentleman or two upon the boule-
! wards, instead Of line of footmen be-
hind the area railings." At about the
time when the income vanished, he fell
In love with an Irish girl, daughter Of
a retired and impecunious colonel liv-
ing on the Continent, and married her.
She and her bad-tempered, sponging
mother are to be found in THE New
comes" as Rose, wife Of Cli:c New
come, and The Campaigner. one Of
Thackeray's best drawn and most dis
agreeable characters Little is known
! OF Thackerey's married life, but there
are indications that it was not very
| happy and 1t was soon enough ended,
for after the birth OF her thirt, child
Mrs. Thackeray became hopeleesly in
sane. She outlived her husband by
about 80 years. Literary hard work
furnished Thackeray q livelihood for a
number OF years, during which time
Fraser's Magazine was his standby and
"puffs" from reviewers were gratefully
| accepted Success came with Vanity
, Fair, which began as q serial called
Pen and Pencil Sketches Of English
/ Society" With literary success, Thack-
cray was admitted to that beau monde
which he satirized but longed for. Once
attained, success never deserted him.
, but his health failed early and this fact
, increased his natural Incidence and
consequent slowness Of production.
Mr.. Ellis has enlivened his biography
with many anecdotes of the life of Grub
street and among the literary elite. in
both Of which Thackeray was partici-
pant. Some OF the anecdotes make us
wonder why the epithet Jazz age" was
not applied three-Quarters Of a century
earlier. Thackeray and his stepfather,
Maj. H. Carmichael Smythe, the proto-
type Of Col. Newcome, were equally san
guine and went into several publishing
enterprises. which promptly failed.
There Is the episode of the satirical por-
trait of Thackeray contributed to Fra
sers by Deadly Keane, in which atten-
ton was called to the nose, which had
every beauty-length breadth, thick.
ness, all but a-bridge." and the mouth
that seems suddenly arrested in the act
of whistling, and from its coriforma-
ton could only emanate a sinister
sneer-" Thackeray induced Frasers to
discontinue all contributions from
Keane. The story of how Charlotte
Bronte inadvertently aided in the sue
cess of Vanity Fair is amusing and
shows that in all ages the public loves
a sensation. The second edition of
Jane Eyre" was dedicated to Thack-
cray. Scandal-loving London started
the story that Rochester in that novel.
who has an insane wife, was intended
to represent Thackeray and that the
woman who had written such an i'm
proper book was probably Thackeray's
mistress. The gossip Immediately
boosted the sales of Vanity Fair" Mr..
Ellis has pronounced clever epitaph
on Thackeray in the last sentence of
his book. after describing his death:
The most famous booth in Vanity Fair
was empty" His estimate of Thack-
erays work is: He stands among the
greatest English novelists. He might
have stood alone"
BEYOND THE RAINBOW. BY Clyde
Kluckhohn. Boston. The Chris
topher Publishing House
-Four times Mr.. Kluckhohn. with true
explorers pertinacity. attempted to
penetrate the Wild Horse Mesa. lying
on the Colorado River. close to the
junction of the San Juan River. He
succeeded in 1923. when. with four
companions. making what they forcibly
and suggestively called The Filthy
Five he reached the mesa and ex-
plored 1t. Mr.. Kluckhohn Is associate
professor of anthropology in the Uni
versity of New Mexico and an officer of
the Archaeological Institute of America.
HIS previous book, To the Foot of the
campaigns against the Wild Horse
Mesa; this book summarizes those
campaigns as a prelude to the story of
achievement. The explorer. who had
just been named a Rhodes scholar from
Wisconsin. had supremely good time,
and by his lively descriptions enables
the reader also to have a good time
vicariously. The mesa. which was
finally reached after many days of
picking the trail through sand and over
rocks, Is a huge tableland. 5000 feet
high. in Southeastern Utah, hemmed
in by tall rock walls rising from the
Colorado River. The scenery, Mr..
Kluckhohn thinks. is far finer than
that of the Grand Canyon. He was.
perhaps. trifle disappointed to find
had been visited by other white men,
and that not very long before his own
visit. He came upon initials cut in the
rocks with dates, one of which was
only six months before the dav on
which he stood and looked at it.
A ong his discoveries were cliff dwell
ings. Indian ruins, and caves bearing
evidences of long-past human habita-
ton. He and his companions made
maps and took moving pictures. In
1929 Mr.. Kluckhohn returned to the
region with rwo Oxford University
friends and tried to take them to the
mesa. but heavy rains had so swollen
the rivers that they were unable to
reach the storied anc picturesque
plateau.
I, THE TIGER. By Manuel komrof. !
New York: Coward -McCann