Newcomes

The: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. It was published in installments from October, 1853, to August, 1855, and was then put out immediately in book form. It ranks with Pendennis and Vanity Fair as among Thackeray's best works. The scene is laid in England in the first half of the nineteenth century. Many people are introduced who figure in the previous novels, especially in Pendennis and Vanity Fair; but the principal characters are new. Colonel Newcome is the most striking character in the story and is one of Thackeray's most memorable creations. It has been said that he is the most "perfect type of the simple English gentleman to be found in literature." This grizzled old soldier loses his fortune and is supported by the charity of the brotherhood of the Grey Friars. See Thackeray

If Thackeray had written nothing else, his picturing of the exquisite simplicity and selfrespecting dignity with which Colonel Newcome accepts the only life that is open to him, would have been enough to prove his genius.--E. M. Tappan.