ABSTRACT
Thackeray more than once had hinted his wish to establish a magazine, as Dickens had done with so much success; and it is most probable that he would have carried out this idea, had not Mr. George Smith (of Messrs. Smith and Elder), who was also anxious to bring out a monthly periodical, obtained his co-operation as editor of the venture by means of the offer of an enormous salary. Thackeray himself had fled ignominiously to Paris before the Magazine appeared. He had been literally overwhelmed with manuscripts, not only at the office—which was all very well—but actually at ‘ the editor’s private residence, to which, in spite of prayers, entreaties, commands, and threats, authors, and ladies especially,’ would send their communications. The novel, or rather the fragment of the novel that had been written, and some of the notes that Thackeray had collected, were published posthumously in the Magazine from March to July, 1864.
