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Thackeray’s New Novel

About This Item

  • Title: Thackeray’s New Novel
  • Date: 22 January 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01335
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 22 January 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Thara Michaelis Kaylen Michaelis Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Thackeray’s New Novel." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01335.xml (TEI)
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THACKERAY’S NEW NOVEL.—

"The Virginian’s,” which Thackeray1 is now publishing in serial numbers, has an especial interest on this side of the water, from the fact that the scene is laid in America, and the characters are Americans. It is a historical tale, dating a century back. “The Virginians” are two young men—“George” and “Henry”—sons of an English widow lady, who lives on her estate of “Castlewood,” by the Potomac (Va.), surrounded by her black dependants, and is one of the wealthy and prominent people of the Colony. When the boys are just approaching manhood, the war with the French and Indians breaks out, and the elder son joins in the campaign on the Monogahela, as an aide-de-camp of Gen. Braddock,2 whose portrait is faithfully sketched, and whose defeat and death end the February number. One of the principal characters in the story is Washington, then a young officer in the Provincial Militia. His estate of Mount Vernon is not far from Castlewood, and he is represented as the intimate friend of the family—the adviser of the widow in regard to the management of her estate and the education of her boys. Not the least amusing episode in the book is that wherein the Castlewood family discover his engagement to “that rich young widow Custis,” and gravely discuss her folly in stooping to marry a “land surveyor.” To sketch the character of Washington in domestic life is a difficult task even for an American pen, and Thackeray’s delineation of it will be watched with close interest. So far, he succeeds in presenting very much such a picture of the grave and courteous young Provincial Captain as that which Irving draws in his biography.

Notes:

1. William Thackeray (1811–1863) was an English satirical author and illustrator. Whitman summarized his assessment of Thackery when asked by Horace Traubel late in life as follows: "I have read Vanity Fair and liked it: it seemed to me a considerable story of its kind—to have its own peculiar value. But Thackeray as a whole did not cast his sinker very deep though he's none the worse for that" (With Walt Whitman in Camden, Monday, October 29, 1888). [back]

2. Edward Braddock (1695–1755) was the commander-in-chief of the British forces in America at the beginning of the so-called French and Indian War (1754–1763). [back]

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