'If I have to complain of any special hardship, it is not that our favourite works are reproduced, and our children introduced to the American public—children whom we have educated with care, and in whom we take a little paternal pride—but that ancient magazines are ransacked, and shabby old articles dragged out, which we had gladly left in the wardrobes where they have lain hidden many years. There is no control, however, over a man's thoughts—once uttered and printed, back they may come upon us on any sudden day; and in this collection which Messrs. Appleton are publishing I find two or three such early productions of my own that I gladly would take back, but that they have long since gone out of the paternal guardianship.
'If not printed in this series, they would have appeared from other presses, having not the slightest need of the author's own imprimatur; and I cannot sufficiently condole with a literary gentleman of this city, who (in his voyages of professional adventure) came upon an early performance of mine, which shall be nameless, carried the news of the discovery to a publisher of books, and had actually done me the favour to sell my book to that liberal man; when, behold, Messrs. Appleton announced the book in the press, and my confrère had to refund the prize-money which had been paid to him. And if he is a little chagrined at finding other intrepid voyagers beforehand with him in taking possession of my island, and the American flag already floating there, he will understand the feelings of the harmless but kindly-treated aboriginal, who makes every sign of peace, who smokes the pipe of submission, and meekly acquiesces in his own annexation.
'It is said that those only who win should laugh: I think, in this case, my readers will not grudge the losing side its share of harmless good-humour. If I have contributed to theirs, or provided them with means of amusement, I am glad to think my books have found favour with the American public, as I am proud to own the great and cordial welcome with which they have received me.
'W. M. Thackeray.
'New York, December 1852.'
Such words could not fail to be gratifying to the American people, as an evidence of Thackeray's sense of the reception he had received; and in spite of a subsequent slight misunderstanding founded on a mistake and speedily cleared up, it may be said that no English writer of fiction was ever more popular in the United States.
A mere accident
