No regular biography of Thackeray has ever been written because of his expressed wish, but his daughter, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, has supplied this lack with many sketches and introductions to various editions of her father's works. Anthony Trollope in his autobiography gives many charming glimpses of Thackeray but his sketch of Thackeray in the English Men of Letters series is not warmly appreciative.
One of the best short estimates of Thackeray is Charles Whibley's Thackeray (1905). Also valuable are sketches by Frederic Harrison in Early Victorian Literature; Brownell, Early Victorian Masters; Whipple, Character and Characteristic Men; R.H. Stoddard, Anecdote Biography of Thackeray; Andrew Lang, Letters to Dead Authors; G.T. Fields, Yesterdays With Authors; Jeaffreson, Novels and Novelists and W.B. Jerrold, The Best of All Good Company.
The reviews and magazines, especially in the last ten years, have abounded in articles on Thackeray. Among these the best have appeared in Scribner's Magazine. A small volume, The Sense and Sentiment of Thackeray (Harper's, 1909), gives numerous good extracts from the novels as well as from the essays.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Smith, Elder & Co. of London were the publishers of Jane Eyre and they also issued the first collected edition of Charlotte Brontë's works. This firm still publishes the standard English edition, the Haworth edition, with admirable introductions by Mrs. Humphrey Ward and with many illustrations from photographs of the places and people made memorable in Charlotte's novels. A good American edition is the Shirley edition, with excellent illustrations, many of them reproductions of rare daguerreotypes.
The standard life of Charlotte Brontë until fifteen years ago was Mrs. Gaskell's, one of the most appealing stories in all literature. Clement K. Shorter's Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle is now indispensable because of the mass of facts that the author has gathered in regard to the life of the sisters in the lonely parsonage and their remarkable literary development. Augustine Birrell has written a good short life of Charlotte, while A.M.F. Robinson (Mme. Duclaux) has a volume on Emily Brontë in the Famous Women series.
T. Wemyss Reid was the first writer to make original research among the Brontë material and his book, Charlotte Brontë—A Monograph, paved the way for the exhaustive study of this strange family of genius by Clement Shorter. Other books that give much original material are The Brontës in Ireland, by Rev. Dr. William Wright, and Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters, by Clement Shorter. Mr. Shorter also in The Brontës—Life and Letters gives all of Charlotte's letters in the order of their dates.
GEORGE ELIOT
The first collected edition of George Eliot's works was brought out in 1878-1880 in London and Edinburgh. Many editions have since appeared in England and in this country, the best one being the English Cabinet edition, published by A. & C. Black.
The standard life of George Eliot is George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals, edited by her husband, J.W. Cross, who served for ten years as curate of Haworth. Leslie Stephen has written a remarkably good short life of George Eliot in the English Men of Letters series.