Thackeray’s Irish travel book, the product of two trips to Ireland in 1840 and 1842, was published by Chapman and Hall in 1843. Following the positive reception of his
Paris Sketch Book(1840)
,his publishers offered him an advance of £120, with the promise of £385 if the work sold 1,200 copies. They did, however, take the precaution of asking him to leave the family plate with them as security.
The Irish Sketch Book is a significant work in that, although it came before Thackeray’s greatest success with Vanity Fair (1848), it was generally well received and contributed appreciably to establishing him as a writer of note (Taylor, 1999, p. 204). It is also a vital element in an Irish thread of his work that would continue in The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844), Pendennis (1848-50) and his
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Citation: Siddle, Yvonne. "The Irish Sketch Book". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 June 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=490, accessed 23 November 2024.]
