Thackeray Sells Vanity Fair: and Other Matters

Abstract

From Glimpses Back Through Seventy Years: Autobiographical and Other Reminiscences (1893) i, 249–53, 283–95, 316–18; ii, 14–15. Vizetelly (1820–94), of Italian ancestry, had printers’ ink in his veins and was artist, engraver, illustrator, publisher, printer, author, translator and literary entrepreneur, with a lengthy career in the book and magazine world, culminating in his being imprisoned in 1889 for persisting in publishing Zola’s ‘obscene’ novel La Terre. His firm had been among the pioneers in illustrated journalism with the Pictorial Times (1843–8) to which Thackeray contributed. Among other journals with which Vizetelly was associated were the Illustrated Times, Welcome Guest and Illustrated London News. At the beginning of this extract from his memoirs, he is describing his preparations for the new Pictorial Times during the winter of 1842–3. Having engaged Knight Hunt as sub-editor, Douglas Jerrold as leader-writer, and Mark Lemon as theatre critic, he next approached Thackeray, an introduction to whom he had obtained from George Nickisson of Fraser’s Magazine.