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The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family
The Newcomes is Thackeray's most "Victorian" novel, generous in its proportions, sharp in its criticism of the morality of the age, and encyclopedic in its reference. Set in the 1830s and 1840s, a period of rapid change and of political and economic development, the novel considers the
fortunes and misfortunes of a respectable extended middle-class family. At its center is Thomas Newcome, whose distinctive but old-fashioned gentlemanliness stands from the self-seeking society in which he lives. The most observant and witty of Thackeray's novels, The Newcomes is also among his
most complex and allusive, and this edition provides full and detailed notes that clarify many of his references.
fortunes and misfortunes of a respectable extended middle-class family. At its center is Thomas Newcome, whose distinctive but old-fashioned gentlemanliness stands from the self-seeking society in which he lives. The most observant and witty of Thackeray's novels, The Newcomes is also among his
most complex and allusive, and this edition provides full and detailed notes that clarify many of his references.
1142 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1855
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About the author
William Makepeace Thackeray
4,454 books1,323 followersWilliam Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist, satirist, and journalist, best known for his keen social commentary and his novel Vanity Fair (1847–1848). His works often explored themes of ambition, hypocrisy, and the moral failings of British society, making him one of the most significant literary figures of the Victorian era.
Born in Calcutta, British India, he was sent to England for his education after his father’s death. He attended Charterhouse School, where he developed a distaste for the rigid school system, and later enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge. However, he left without earning a degree, instead traveling in Europe and pursuing artistic ambitions.
After losing much of his inheritance due to bad investments, Thackeray turned to writing for a living. He contributed satirical sketches, essays, and stories to periodicals such as Fraser’s Magazine and Punch, gradually building a reputation for his sharp wit and keen observational skills. His breakthrough came with Vanity Fair, a panoramic satire of English society that introduced the enduring character of Becky Sharp, a resourceful and amoral social climber.
Thackeray’s later novels, including Pendennis (1848–1850), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), and The Newcomes (1853–1855), continued to explore the lives of the English upper and middle classes, often focusing on the contrast between personal virtue and social ambition. His historical novel Henry Esmond was particularly praised for its detailed 18th-century setting and complex characterization.
In addition to his fiction, Thackeray was a noted public speaker and essayist, delivering lectures on the English humorists of the 18th century and on The Four Georges, a critical look at the British monarchy.
Despite his literary success, he lived with personal struggles, including the mental illness of his wife, Isabella, which deeply affected him. He remained devoted to his two daughters and was known for his kindness and generosity among his friends and colleagues.
His works remain widely read, appreciated for their incisive humor, rich characterizations, and unflinching critique of social pretensions.
Born in Calcutta, British India, he was sent to England for his education after his father’s death. He attended Charterhouse School, where he developed a distaste for the rigid school system, and later enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge. However, he left without earning a degree, instead traveling in Europe and pursuing artistic ambitions.
After losing much of his inheritance due to bad investments, Thackeray turned to writing for a living. He contributed satirical sketches, essays, and stories to periodicals such as Fraser’s Magazine and Punch, gradually building a reputation for his sharp wit and keen observational skills. His breakthrough came with Vanity Fair, a panoramic satire of English society that introduced the enduring character of Becky Sharp, a resourceful and amoral social climber.
Thackeray’s later novels, including Pendennis (1848–1850), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), and The Newcomes (1853–1855), continued to explore the lives of the English upper and middle classes, often focusing on the contrast between personal virtue and social ambition. His historical novel Henry Esmond was particularly praised for its detailed 18th-century setting and complex characterization.
In addition to his fiction, Thackeray was a noted public speaker and essayist, delivering lectures on the English humorists of the 18th century and on The Four Georges, a critical look at the British monarchy.
Despite his literary success, he lived with personal struggles, including the mental illness of his wife, Isabella, which deeply affected him. He remained devoted to his two daughters and was known for his kindness and generosity among his friends and colleagues.
His works remain widely read, appreciated for their incisive humor, rich characterizations, and unflinching critique of social pretensions.
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July 28, 2022
“‘By George, Tom Newcome,’ said he, ‘you’re just one of the saints of the earth. If all men were like you there’d be an end of both our trades; there would be no fighting and soldiering, nor rogues and no magistrates to catch them.’”
Thus quoth James Binnie, an old friend of Colonel Thomas Newcome’s, one of the two protagonists of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel The Newcomes, and all in all, he is quite right: The Colonel is not only a brave and trusty soldier, but also a paragon of honesty, straightforwardness, gentleness, he is good-hearted, often a bit on the simple side, e.g. when it comes to politics or money affairs, he is beloved by women – whom he treats with respect – and by children – whom he goes out of his way to spoil, but even such a man, who may well exist, might be led astray by his own yearnings and by his naivety. One of the Colonel’s heart’s desires is to make his son Clive happy by setting him up in life and giving him the opportunity to follow his calling as a painter – even though the Colonel knows next to nothing about painting and finds it difficult to reconcile his idea of a gentleman with an artist’s life – and by finding him a suitable wife. It is, above all, through the latter of these intentions that he makes his own life and that of his son miserable – as will be seen on the pages of Thackeray’s novel.
And let me tell you that The Newcomes is quite a blue whale of a novel with its more than 1,000 pages, its rambling style, and its incredibly large cast of characters. You may find this intimidating or even off-putting but, if you are not afraid of investing your time in Victorian novels, you will quite probably love reading The Newcomes because the author unquestionably succeeds in opening an entire world before you, which gives insight into lots of peculiarities of (upper middle-class and upper class) English life in the early 19th century. Thackeray introduces us to the Newcome family, which does have humble origins but, at the time of the novel, has climbed up the social ladder and even made connections with noble families via marriage. This can be seen in the example of Colonel Newcome’s two half-brothers, who are both in charge of a respectable and prospering banking house. Nevertheless, while one of the brothers, Hobson Newcome, likes to stylise himself as a dyed-in-the-wool country gentleman – and his wife assembles a drawing-room of what she deems intellectual crème de la crème –, the other brother, Sir Brian, has married Lady Anne, one of the daughters of the formidable, calculating Lady Kew, and is considered to be moving in rather different circles. The Colonel, after having served in India for long years and having been some kind of scapegrace of the family, now returns to England, where he wants to get to know his son Clive, the second protagonist, a young man, who comes after his father in terms of honesty and good-heartedness, and who has some talent for drawing and painting. Not wanting to stand in his son’s way, he encourages him in pursuing his career as a painter and also supports him when he falls in love with Ethel Newcome, his cousin. This young lady, however, for all her intelligence and mental independence considers herself beholden to her family’s interests, which seem to demand – so the wordly-minded Lady Kew puts it – her marrying up, thus contributing to the further rise of her family. Apart from that, to be quite honest, Ethel is also flattered by the attention she gets at all those balls her grandmother Lady Kew drags her to, and therefore, she does not listen to her own heart, which tells her to marry Clive.
When Clive’s father realises that neither Lady Kew nor Ethel’s brother Barnes, one of the villains of the story, has the intention of considering Clive as a husband for Ethel, he makes up another match for his son, who accepts it, partly because his thwarted hopes for Ethel make him indifferent for anything else, partly out of a feeling of filial duty – only to be plunged into domestic unhappiness due to a lack of compatibility of temper between himself and his rather bland wife.
One may safely say that the major theme of this novel is the misery that usually arises out of so-called “marriages of convenience”, i.e. marriages that are entered into for reasons of social status, of increasing one’s fortune or for political reasons rather than out of mutual affection. There is hardly a couple in this book that can be called happy: Even the Colonel himself, after his first and only love affair was thwarted because the father of his beloved would not hear of giving his daughter to an English commoner, married a woman he did not particularly care about and had his only son with her. Other examples of such unhappy marriages abound – there is the villainous Barnes, who treats his wife with so much scorn and brutality that the unhappy creature absconds with her former sweetheart, consigned to a “life of shame”, there are Sir Brian and Lady Anne, who just seem to live next to each other without any genuine sentiment, and there is the Colonel’s former love, who has married a French nobleman a lot older than herself. The most tragically ironic example is Clive himself, who marries a woman he does not love because his father has selected her for him thinking that this will take his mind off the only woman he ever really loved, his half-cousin Ethel.
Not only does Thackeray show the inherent evils of marriages of convenience, however, he also skewers people’s readiness to fawn over and submit to anyone with a handle to their name, their tendency to give themselves airs and play the vanity game. This criticism is not merely directed at people as such but also at institutions: When Barnes, after ill-treating his wife in the worst ways imaginable, is even granted damages from her former suitor Jack Belsize – after she runs off with the latter –, the narrator clearly voices his disgust at laws that make something like this possible.
It must be admitted that the book sometimes dwells too heavily, to lengthily and too repetitively on its criticism of marriages of convenience, and that we often have reason to grow impatient of Clive and his mooning over Ethel and that this novel might have been better for having lost the one or the other of its episodes or of its auctorial comments. Still, you are never bored for long, I daresay, all the less so since Thackeray’s choice of perspective is quite engaging: He has the entire story told by the writer Arthur Pendennis, whom inveterate Thackeray readers might know from The History of Pendennis and who acts both as a friend to Newcome father and son and as the chronicler of their story. Pendennis moves back and forth in the story, requiring the whole of the reader’s attention, and it is clear that much of what he tells us about cannot be known to him by any means. It is this latter detail that also makes the novel a shrewd comment on story-telling as such, all the more so as Pendennis quite often makes rather witty observations on his role as a narrator or on fiction as such – for example:
(This might be quite new to some readers brought up on Dickens solely; and in The Newcomes, you will be surprised by the ambivalence of some of the characters, although not of all of them.)
(Thackeray later mentions one of these blunders himself – the resurrection of a minor character after her demise in the story.)
It is these tongue-in-cheek comments, along with many other auctorial intrusions, the greatness of the canvas employed by Thackeray and the richness of his characters – although, in opposition to Dickens, I do not regard him as such a good story-teller nor as somebody who can wield language with such dramatic power as the Inimitable – that make reading this novel an unforgettable experience.
If my review has made you curious about The Newcomes and willing to tackle with this doorstopper of a novel, I might recommend you to draw a Newcome family tree as you go along reading this novel because this will help you keep track of the relations between the characters.
Thus quoth James Binnie, an old friend of Colonel Thomas Newcome’s, one of the two protagonists of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel The Newcomes, and all in all, he is quite right: The Colonel is not only a brave and trusty soldier, but also a paragon of honesty, straightforwardness, gentleness, he is good-hearted, often a bit on the simple side, e.g. when it comes to politics or money affairs, he is beloved by women – whom he treats with respect – and by children – whom he goes out of his way to spoil, but even such a man, who may well exist, might be led astray by his own yearnings and by his naivety. One of the Colonel’s heart’s desires is to make his son Clive happy by setting him up in life and giving him the opportunity to follow his calling as a painter – even though the Colonel knows next to nothing about painting and finds it difficult to reconcile his idea of a gentleman with an artist’s life – and by finding him a suitable wife. It is, above all, through the latter of these intentions that he makes his own life and that of his son miserable – as will be seen on the pages of Thackeray’s novel.
And let me tell you that The Newcomes is quite a blue whale of a novel with its more than 1,000 pages, its rambling style, and its incredibly large cast of characters. You may find this intimidating or even off-putting but, if you are not afraid of investing your time in Victorian novels, you will quite probably love reading The Newcomes because the author unquestionably succeeds in opening an entire world before you, which gives insight into lots of peculiarities of (upper middle-class and upper class) English life in the early 19th century. Thackeray introduces us to the Newcome family, which does have humble origins but, at the time of the novel, has climbed up the social ladder and even made connections with noble families via marriage. This can be seen in the example of Colonel Newcome’s two half-brothers, who are both in charge of a respectable and prospering banking house. Nevertheless, while one of the brothers, Hobson Newcome, likes to stylise himself as a dyed-in-the-wool country gentleman – and his wife assembles a drawing-room of what she deems intellectual crème de la crème –, the other brother, Sir Brian, has married Lady Anne, one of the daughters of the formidable, calculating Lady Kew, and is considered to be moving in rather different circles. The Colonel, after having served in India for long years and having been some kind of scapegrace of the family, now returns to England, where he wants to get to know his son Clive, the second protagonist, a young man, who comes after his father in terms of honesty and good-heartedness, and who has some talent for drawing and painting. Not wanting to stand in his son’s way, he encourages him in pursuing his career as a painter and also supports him when he falls in love with Ethel Newcome, his cousin. This young lady, however, for all her intelligence and mental independence considers herself beholden to her family’s interests, which seem to demand – so the wordly-minded Lady Kew puts it – her marrying up, thus contributing to the further rise of her family. Apart from that, to be quite honest, Ethel is also flattered by the attention she gets at all those balls her grandmother Lady Kew drags her to, and therefore, she does not listen to her own heart, which tells her to marry Clive.
When Clive’s father realises that neither Lady Kew nor Ethel’s brother Barnes, one of the villains of the story, has the intention of considering Clive as a husband for Ethel, he makes up another match for his son, who accepts it, partly because his thwarted hopes for Ethel make him indifferent for anything else, partly out of a feeling of filial duty – only to be plunged into domestic unhappiness due to a lack of compatibility of temper between himself and his rather bland wife.
One may safely say that the major theme of this novel is the misery that usually arises out of so-called “marriages of convenience”, i.e. marriages that are entered into for reasons of social status, of increasing one’s fortune or for political reasons rather than out of mutual affection. There is hardly a couple in this book that can be called happy: Even the Colonel himself, after his first and only love affair was thwarted because the father of his beloved would not hear of giving his daughter to an English commoner, married a woman he did not particularly care about and had his only son with her. Other examples of such unhappy marriages abound – there is the villainous Barnes, who treats his wife with so much scorn and brutality that the unhappy creature absconds with her former sweetheart, consigned to a “life of shame”, there are Sir Brian and Lady Anne, who just seem to live next to each other without any genuine sentiment, and there is the Colonel’s former love, who has married a French nobleman a lot older than herself. The most tragically ironic example is Clive himself, who marries a woman he does not love because his father has selected her for him thinking that this will take his mind off the only woman he ever really loved, his half-cousin Ethel.
Not only does Thackeray show the inherent evils of marriages of convenience, however, he also skewers people’s readiness to fawn over and submit to anyone with a handle to their name, their tendency to give themselves airs and play the vanity game. This criticism is not merely directed at people as such but also at institutions: When Barnes, after ill-treating his wife in the worst ways imaginable, is even granted damages from her former suitor Jack Belsize – after she runs off with the latter –, the narrator clearly voices his disgust at laws that make something like this possible.
It must be admitted that the book sometimes dwells too heavily, to lengthily and too repetitively on its criticism of marriages of convenience, and that we often have reason to grow impatient of Clive and his mooning over Ethel and that this novel might have been better for having lost the one or the other of its episodes or of its auctorial comments. Still, you are never bored for long, I daresay, all the less so since Thackeray’s choice of perspective is quite engaging: He has the entire story told by the writer Arthur Pendennis, whom inveterate Thackeray readers might know from The History of Pendennis and who acts both as a friend to Newcome father and son and as the chronicler of their story. Pendennis moves back and forth in the story, requiring the whole of the reader’s attention, and it is clear that much of what he tells us about cannot be known to him by any means. It is this latter detail that also makes the novel a shrewd comment on story-telling as such, all the more so as Pendennis quite often makes rather witty observations on his role as a narrator or on fiction as such – for example:
”It does not follow that all men are honest because they are poor; and I have known some who were friendly and generous, although they had plenty of money. There are some great landlords who do not grind down their tenants; there are actually bishops who are not hypocrites; there are liberal men even among the Whigs, and the Radicals themselves are not all aristocrats at heart.”
(This might be quite new to some readers brought up on Dickens solely; and in The Newcomes, you will be surprised by the ambivalence of some of the characters, although not of all of them.)
”Also, no doubt, the writer of the book, into whose hands Clive Newcome’s logs have been put, and who is charged with the duty of making two octavo volumes out of his friend’s story, dresses up the narrative in his own way; utters his own remarks in place of Newcome’s; makes fanciful descriptions of individuals and incidents with which he never could have been personally acquainted; and commits blunders, which the critics will discover.”
(Thackeray later mentions one of these blunders himself – the resurrection of a minor character after her demise in the story.)
”But a novelist must go on with his heroine, as a man with his wife, for better or worse, and to the end.”
”Anything you like happens in Fable-land. Wicked folks die a propos () – annoying folks are got out of the way; the poor are rewarded – the upstarts are set down in Fable-land, […]”
It is these tongue-in-cheek comments, along with many other auctorial intrusions, the greatness of the canvas employed by Thackeray and the richness of his characters – although, in opposition to Dickens, I do not regard him as such a good story-teller nor as somebody who can wield language with such dramatic power as the Inimitable – that make reading this novel an unforgettable experience.
If my review has made you curious about The Newcomes and willing to tackle with this doorstopper of a novel, I might recommend you to draw a Newcome family tree as you go along reading this novel because this will help you keep track of the relations between the characters.
March 25, 2012
I picked up this book after reading Trollope's "Ralph the Heir," which mentions the main character of this book quite a number of times as a paragon of virtue and heroics. I was intrigued, and, the book happened to be sitting on my shelves.
For the first 400 pages this was the most rambling, not-to-the (or any)-point book ever. I kept getting glimpses of the story, of the important characters, the themes, but they kept constantly being dropped along the wayside of asides and personal feelings and even seemingly (and possibly) incomplete thoughts and I don't know what else. Obviously there were enough semi-hidden jewels to keep me inclined to keep reading, and even before the 400 pg mark I truly was invested in the character of the Colonel (if still bewildered at the book's directionless momentum).
However, sometimes a book is a struggle when one comes close to 400 pages and still doesn't have much of a clue about the main purpose of the book. I was fairly sure that Thackeray wouldn't let me down, but I feel for those people who were dragged through 23 months of serialization when this book was first published! I wouldn't suggest this book for anyone not well versed or deeply interested in Victoriana because of the statements made above. It's just not a good starting place and not at all a good introduction to Thackeray probably.
All that said, I've spent the last hour with a box of kleenex and a very full heart. What the first volume lacked, the second certainly made up for in every way. Things seemed to get much more concise, well-ordered and to-the-point. The second volume is where the characters, who except for the Colonel, have hardly become more than 1 dimensional, really come to life. And then, boy do they! All of a sudden we have so many real people to keep track of that we can hardly hold them all in our hearts.
At least in the latter half of this book I think Thackeray has almost combined the best of Trollope and of Dickens in his wonderful characterizations and incredibly moving and absorbing story-line. By saying that, I'm not saying Thackeray doesn't have a great style all his own, only mentioning that he seemed to be able to combine both of those admirable men's greatest talents into one place. And he did it very well.
I was completely pleased and delighted with the second volume and think that all the slogging through of the first was worth it.
The relationships were fascinating. In the beginning I worried that this might be a book about a spoiled boy who didn't honor his worthy father. It was so wonderfully the opposite, and Clive loves his father (and vice versa) in a beautifully touching way. The bits where they have misunderstood one another and then come back together were probably some of the best paragraphs to come from pen in terms of relationships between father & son. The growth of some of the characters (and degradation of others) was quite masterfully done.
I don't think I'm likely to forget this book in a hurry.
Some great points:
-"'Tom Jones,' sir,; 'Joseph Andrews,' sir," he cried, twirling his mustachios. "I read them when I was a boy, when I kept other bad company, and did other low and disgraceful things, of which I'm ashamed now." (Colonel Newcome's opinion of Thackeray, vol 1, pg 41--had me laughing)
-"'I think every m an would like to come of an ancient and honorable race,' said the Colonel in his honest way. 'As you like your father to be an honorable man, why not your grandfather, and his ancestors before him? But if we can't inherit a good name, at least we can do our best to leave one, my boy; and that is an ambition, which, please God, you and I will both hold by." (vol 1, 72)
-"She discovered that she was a great unappreciated soul, and when a woman finds that treasure in her bosom, of course she sets her own price upon the article." (vol 1, 329)
-"You see there come moments of sorrow after the most brilliant victories; and you conquer and rout the enemy utterly, and then regret that you fought." (vol 1, 354)
-"I thought I might be good once, I used to say my own prayers then. Now I speak them but by rote, and feel ashamed--yes, ashamed to speak them. Is it not horrid to say them, and next morning to be no better than you were last night?" (vol 2, 101)
-"You fancy we [women] are all jealous of one another. No protests of ours can take that notion out of your heads....We are not jealous of mediocrity; we are not patient of it. I dare say we are angry because we see men admire it so." (vol 2, 118)
-"She was silent too for a while. I could see she was engaged where pious women ever will betake themselves in moments of doubt, of grief, of pain, of separation, of joy even, or whatsoever other trial. They have but to will, and as it were an invisible temple rises around them; their hearts can kneel down there; and the have an audience of the great, the merciful, untiring Counsellor and Consoler." (vol 2, 204)
-"The little ills of life are the hardest to bear, as we all very well know. What would the possession of a hundred thousand a year, or fame, and the applause of one's countrymen, or the loveliest and best beloved woman,--of any glory, and happiness, or good fortune, avail to a gentleman, for instance, who was allowed to enjoy them only with the condition of wearing a shoe with a couple of nails or sharp pebbles inside it? All fame and happiness would disappear, and plunge down that shoe. All life would rankle round those little nails." (vol 2, 288)
-"What is the victory over such a fellow?" (vol 2, 308)
For the first 400 pages this was the most rambling, not-to-the (or any)-point book ever. I kept getting glimpses of the story, of the important characters, the themes, but they kept constantly being dropped along the wayside of asides and personal feelings and even seemingly (and possibly) incomplete thoughts and I don't know what else. Obviously there were enough semi-hidden jewels to keep me inclined to keep reading, and even before the 400 pg mark I truly was invested in the character of the Colonel (if still bewildered at the book's directionless momentum).
However, sometimes a book is a struggle when one comes close to 400 pages and still doesn't have much of a clue about the main purpose of the book. I was fairly sure that Thackeray wouldn't let me down, but I feel for those people who were dragged through 23 months of serialization when this book was first published! I wouldn't suggest this book for anyone not well versed or deeply interested in Victoriana because of the statements made above. It's just not a good starting place and not at all a good introduction to Thackeray probably.
All that said, I've spent the last hour with a box of kleenex and a very full heart. What the first volume lacked, the second certainly made up for in every way. Things seemed to get much more concise, well-ordered and to-the-point. The second volume is where the characters, who except for the Colonel, have hardly become more than 1 dimensional, really come to life. And then, boy do they! All of a sudden we have so many real people to keep track of that we can hardly hold them all in our hearts.
At least in the latter half of this book I think Thackeray has almost combined the best of Trollope and of Dickens in his wonderful characterizations and incredibly moving and absorbing story-line. By saying that, I'm not saying Thackeray doesn't have a great style all his own, only mentioning that he seemed to be able to combine both of those admirable men's greatest talents into one place. And he did it very well.
I was completely pleased and delighted with the second volume and think that all the slogging through of the first was worth it.
The relationships were fascinating. In the beginning I worried that this might be a book about a spoiled boy who didn't honor his worthy father. It was so wonderfully the opposite, and Clive loves his father (and vice versa) in a beautifully touching way. The bits where they have misunderstood one another and then come back together were probably some of the best paragraphs to come from pen in terms of relationships between father & son. The growth of some of the characters (and degradation of others) was quite masterfully done.
I don't think I'm likely to forget this book in a hurry.
Some great points:
-"'Tom Jones,' sir,; 'Joseph Andrews,' sir," he cried, twirling his mustachios. "I read them when I was a boy, when I kept other bad company, and did other low and disgraceful things, of which I'm ashamed now." (Colonel Newcome's opinion of Thackeray, vol 1, pg 41--had me laughing)
-"'I think every m an would like to come of an ancient and honorable race,' said the Colonel in his honest way. 'As you like your father to be an honorable man, why not your grandfather, and his ancestors before him? But if we can't inherit a good name, at least we can do our best to leave one, my boy; and that is an ambition, which, please God, you and I will both hold by." (vol 1, 72)
-"She discovered that she was a great unappreciated soul, and when a woman finds that treasure in her bosom, of course she sets her own price upon the article." (vol 1, 329)
-"You see there come moments of sorrow after the most brilliant victories; and you conquer and rout the enemy utterly, and then regret that you fought." (vol 1, 354)
-"I thought I might be good once, I used to say my own prayers then. Now I speak them but by rote, and feel ashamed--yes, ashamed to speak them. Is it not horrid to say them, and next morning to be no better than you were last night?" (vol 2, 101)
-"You fancy we [women] are all jealous of one another. No protests of ours can take that notion out of your heads....We are not jealous of mediocrity; we are not patient of it. I dare say we are angry because we see men admire it so." (vol 2, 118)
-"She was silent too for a while. I could see she was engaged where pious women ever will betake themselves in moments of doubt, of grief, of pain, of separation, of joy even, or whatsoever other trial. They have but to will, and as it were an invisible temple rises around them; their hearts can kneel down there; and the have an audience of the great, the merciful, untiring Counsellor and Consoler." (vol 2, 204)
-"The little ills of life are the hardest to bear, as we all very well know. What would the possession of a hundred thousand a year, or fame, and the applause of one's countrymen, or the loveliest and best beloved woman,--of any glory, and happiness, or good fortune, avail to a gentleman, for instance, who was allowed to enjoy them only with the condition of wearing a shoe with a couple of nails or sharp pebbles inside it? All fame and happiness would disappear, and plunge down that shoe. All life would rankle round those little nails." (vol 2, 288)
-"What is the victory over such a fellow?" (vol 2, 308)
December 15, 2024
The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family is a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in 1854 and 1855. The Newcomes was published serially over about two years, as Thackeray himself says in one of the novel's final chapters. I'm not sure why he needed to say that in one of the final chapters since I'm pretty sure I'd know it had taken me two years to get through this book by then. The novel is very long, usually around 800 pages or more, depending on who is doing the publishing and how many of those little extra notes you want at the bottom of the page. Its events occur over many years and in several countries before the reader reaches the predictable conclusion, and I'm not telling you the predictable conclusion, you should be able to predict that for yourself. The main part of The Newcomes is set a decade or two after the action of Vanity Fair, another really long book, and some of the characters in Vanity Fair are mentioned peripherally in The Newcomes just to confuse people like me. The narrator is Arthur Pendennis, the protagonist of Pendennis. When I was reading this, I read this about Thackeray:
Thackeray achieved more recognition with his Snob Papers (serialised 1846/7, published in book form in 1848), but the work that really established his fame was the novel Vanity Fair, which first appeared in serialised instalments beginning in January 1847. Even before Vanity Fair completed its serial run, Thackeray had become a celebrity, sought after by the very lords and ladies whom he satirised. They hailed him as the equal of Charles Dickens.
No. If you're asking me, and no one is, he's not even close. I also read this little interesting thing about him:
Thackeray's health worsened during the 1850s, and he was plagued by a recurring stricture of the urethra that laid him up for days at a time. He also felt that he had lost much of his creative impetus. He worsened matters by excessive eating and drinking and avoiding exercise, though he enjoyed riding (he kept a horse). He has been described as "the greatest literary glutton who ever lived". His main activity apart from writing was "gutting and gorging". He could not break his addiction to spicy peppers, further ruining his digestion.
I don't think I'd want to be known as the greatest literary glutton who ever lived, but I haven't quite decided that one yet. And finally, during the Victorian era, he was ranked second to Charles Dickens but is now primarily known for Vanity Fair. Well now he can be known for The Newcomes too.
One of the two protagonists in the novel is Colonel Thomas Newcome. The Colonel is strong, brave, honest, gentle, good-hearted, you get the idea. Women love him, children love him, you get the picture. The Colonel has spent most of his adult life in India. He is a widower, and he sends his only son Clive home to England to be educated. I will assume from that you can't get educated in India, I wouldn't know. There Clive meets and falls in love with his cousin Ethel. What is it with people falling in love with their cousins in books I've read lately? Ethel's family want her to make a grand marriage, and apparently marrying dear cousin Clive isn't grand enough. However, becoming engaged to another cousin, cousin Lord Kew, then later to Lord Farintosh is grand enough. I can't remember how many of these people are cousins anymore. Eventually she gets tired of the whole thing and announces she isn't going to get married at all, she ran out of cousins I guess.
My problem with the novel is simple. I don't like Ethel. Why? I don't know, I just don't. I get tired of seeing her name, I get tired of hearing her talk, she just gets on my nerves, and if you don't feel like spending a few hundred pages with someone you are going to get really tired of being with that person. Here is a fine description of her:
Miss Ethel indeed was haughty, very haughty, and of a difficult temper. She spared none of her party except her kind mother, to whom Ethel always was kind, and her father, whom, since his illnesses, she tended with much benevolence and care. But she did battle with Lady Kew repeatedly, coming to her Aunt Julia’s rescue, on whom her mother as usual exercised her powers of torturing. She made Barnes quail before her by the shafts of contempt which she flashed at him; and she did not spare Lord Kew, whose good-nature was no shield against her scorn. The old queen-mother was fairly afraid of her; she even left off beating Lady Julia when Ethel came in, of course taking her revenge in the young girl’s absence, but trying in her presence to soothe and please her. Against Lord Kew the young girl’s anger was most unjust, and the more cruel because the kindly young nobleman never spoke a hard word of any one mortal soul, and, carrying no arms, should have been assaulted by none. But his very good-nature seemed to make his young opponent only the more wrathful; she shot because his honest breast was bare; it bled at the wounds which she inflicted. Her relatives looked at her surprised at her cruelty, and the young man himself was shocked in his dignity and best feelings by his cousin’s wanton ill-humour.
And more about Ethel:
Ethel had made various attempts to become intimate with her future sister-in-law; had walked, and ridden, and talked with Lady Clara before Barnes’s arrival. She had come away not very much impressed with respect for Lady Clara’s mental powers; indeed, we have said that Miss Ethel was rather more prone to attack women than to admire them, and was a little hard upon the fashionable young persons of her acquaintance and sex.
I would think every day Lady Clara is just in tears because the great Ethel doesn't like her. I would find all the things that Ethel dislikes the most about people and do them all.
Of course there are more people walking around in this novel than just Ethel and her cousins, there is her grandmother, her mother, her father, Rosa Newcome, Susan Newcome, Sophia Newcome, Sir Brian Newcome, Lady Anne Newcome, Mrs. Hobson Newcome, Barnes Newcome, don't worry, I think I'm almost out of Newcomes, Charles Belsize, Jack Belsize, Lady Julia, Lady Walham, Lady Clara, I could go on and on and on, but I feel like I already have. My point is, there are lots of other people to spend time with than just Ethel, unfortunately, there is just too much of her for me. The book does get a star for having illustrations, that's always a plus. And now I am done with Ethel and all the other Newcomes that go with her.
Thackeray achieved more recognition with his Snob Papers (serialised 1846/7, published in book form in 1848), but the work that really established his fame was the novel Vanity Fair, which first appeared in serialised instalments beginning in January 1847. Even before Vanity Fair completed its serial run, Thackeray had become a celebrity, sought after by the very lords and ladies whom he satirised. They hailed him as the equal of Charles Dickens.
No. If you're asking me, and no one is, he's not even close. I also read this little interesting thing about him:
Thackeray's health worsened during the 1850s, and he was plagued by a recurring stricture of the urethra that laid him up for days at a time. He also felt that he had lost much of his creative impetus. He worsened matters by excessive eating and drinking and avoiding exercise, though he enjoyed riding (he kept a horse). He has been described as "the greatest literary glutton who ever lived". His main activity apart from writing was "gutting and gorging". He could not break his addiction to spicy peppers, further ruining his digestion.
I don't think I'd want to be known as the greatest literary glutton who ever lived, but I haven't quite decided that one yet. And finally, during the Victorian era, he was ranked second to Charles Dickens but is now primarily known for Vanity Fair. Well now he can be known for The Newcomes too.
One of the two protagonists in the novel is Colonel Thomas Newcome. The Colonel is strong, brave, honest, gentle, good-hearted, you get the idea. Women love him, children love him, you get the picture. The Colonel has spent most of his adult life in India. He is a widower, and he sends his only son Clive home to England to be educated. I will assume from that you can't get educated in India, I wouldn't know. There Clive meets and falls in love with his cousin Ethel. What is it with people falling in love with their cousins in books I've read lately? Ethel's family want her to make a grand marriage, and apparently marrying dear cousin Clive isn't grand enough. However, becoming engaged to another cousin, cousin Lord Kew, then later to Lord Farintosh is grand enough. I can't remember how many of these people are cousins anymore. Eventually she gets tired of the whole thing and announces she isn't going to get married at all, she ran out of cousins I guess.
My problem with the novel is simple. I don't like Ethel. Why? I don't know, I just don't. I get tired of seeing her name, I get tired of hearing her talk, she just gets on my nerves, and if you don't feel like spending a few hundred pages with someone you are going to get really tired of being with that person. Here is a fine description of her:
Miss Ethel indeed was haughty, very haughty, and of a difficult temper. She spared none of her party except her kind mother, to whom Ethel always was kind, and her father, whom, since his illnesses, she tended with much benevolence and care. But she did battle with Lady Kew repeatedly, coming to her Aunt Julia’s rescue, on whom her mother as usual exercised her powers of torturing. She made Barnes quail before her by the shafts of contempt which she flashed at him; and she did not spare Lord Kew, whose good-nature was no shield against her scorn. The old queen-mother was fairly afraid of her; she even left off beating Lady Julia when Ethel came in, of course taking her revenge in the young girl’s absence, but trying in her presence to soothe and please her. Against Lord Kew the young girl’s anger was most unjust, and the more cruel because the kindly young nobleman never spoke a hard word of any one mortal soul, and, carrying no arms, should have been assaulted by none. But his very good-nature seemed to make his young opponent only the more wrathful; she shot because his honest breast was bare; it bled at the wounds which she inflicted. Her relatives looked at her surprised at her cruelty, and the young man himself was shocked in his dignity and best feelings by his cousin’s wanton ill-humour.
And more about Ethel:
Ethel had made various attempts to become intimate with her future sister-in-law; had walked, and ridden, and talked with Lady Clara before Barnes’s arrival. She had come away not very much impressed with respect for Lady Clara’s mental powers; indeed, we have said that Miss Ethel was rather more prone to attack women than to admire them, and was a little hard upon the fashionable young persons of her acquaintance and sex.
I would think every day Lady Clara is just in tears because the great Ethel doesn't like her. I would find all the things that Ethel dislikes the most about people and do them all.
Of course there are more people walking around in this novel than just Ethel and her cousins, there is her grandmother, her mother, her father, Rosa Newcome, Susan Newcome, Sophia Newcome, Sir Brian Newcome, Lady Anne Newcome, Mrs. Hobson Newcome, Barnes Newcome, don't worry, I think I'm almost out of Newcomes, Charles Belsize, Jack Belsize, Lady Julia, Lady Walham, Lady Clara, I could go on and on and on, but I feel like I already have. My point is, there are lots of other people to spend time with than just Ethel, unfortunately, there is just too much of her for me. The book does get a star for having illustrations, that's always a plus. And now I am done with Ethel and all the other Newcomes that go with her.
July 10, 2012
I didn't enjoy this as much as Thackeray's Vanity Fair, and I can understand why it's not read too much today (despite being very popular until about 100 years ago). While there are moments of both sly humor and true pathos to pull you in, it's not the kind of story that transcends its time. For example, one of the main characters, Clive, is just an emo, wanna-be artist who doesn't do much but travel around, have fun and moon over his cousin. It's hard to feel much sympathy for a guy like this, but you know that contemporary readers would likely have found him charming and sympathetic, especially when his fortune is wiped out about 125 pages before the story ends.
I disliked how the all the women in this book were either evil shrews (Lady Kew, Mrs. Mackenzie), simpering fools (Clara, Rosey) or virtuous angels (Madame de Florac, Laura, later Ethel). Truly, I liked the shrews best, as they are the only ones who show any backbone and pragmatism. Similarly, I didn't find the "hero," Clive's father, the Colonel, especially appealing for the last third of the book. If you blow the entire family's fortune, refuse all offers of help due to your "honor," and then literally end up a charity case, well, I don't call you a saint. To my 21st century eyes, you are a pig-headed idiot with a martyr complex.
There are some interesting points on the upper-class marriage market which I think still ring true today. In addition, Thackeray is great storyteller, even when you're frustrated at what his characters are doing. As a piece of mid-Victorian literature, if you like that sort of thing, it's the sort of thing you'll like.
I disliked how the all the women in this book were either evil shrews (Lady Kew, Mrs. Mackenzie), simpering fools (Clara, Rosey) or virtuous angels (Madame de Florac, Laura, later Ethel). Truly, I liked the shrews best, as they are the only ones who show any backbone and pragmatism. Similarly, I didn't find the "hero," Clive's father, the Colonel, especially appealing for the last third of the book. If you blow the entire family's fortune, refuse all offers of help due to your "honor," and then literally end up a charity case, well, I don't call you a saint. To my 21st century eyes, you are a pig-headed idiot with a martyr complex.
There are some interesting points on the upper-class marriage market which I think still ring true today. In addition, Thackeray is great storyteller, even when you're frustrated at what his characters are doing. As a piece of mid-Victorian literature, if you like that sort of thing, it's the sort of thing you'll like.
January 1, 2026
[2025]: Two great bits about Colonel Newcome's coat I highlighted this time:
"We have called him Captain purposely, while speaking of his coat, for he held that rank when the garment came out to him; and having been in the habit of considering it a splendid coat for twelve years past, he has not the least idea of changing his opinion."
"'I say, Kean, is that blue coat of mine very old?'
'Uncommon white about the seams, Colonel,' says the man.
'Is it older than other people's coats?'—Kean is obliged gravely to confess that the Colonel's coat is very queer.
'Get me another coat, then—see that I don't do anything or wear anything unusual. I have been so long out of Europe, that I don't know the customs here, and am not above learning.'"
[2023]: Finished rereading this while I had COVID (bad fever, aches, tiny bit of delirium) and that is not a position you want to be in if you're going to withstand the sentiment and emotion in one of the greatest and most Victorian Victorian novels. Colonel Newcome, man.
[2016]: The Pendennises are way better in this than they are in Pendennis.
"We have called him Captain purposely, while speaking of his coat, for he held that rank when the garment came out to him; and having been in the habit of considering it a splendid coat for twelve years past, he has not the least idea of changing his opinion."
"'I say, Kean, is that blue coat of mine very old?'
'Uncommon white about the seams, Colonel,' says the man.
'Is it older than other people's coats?'—Kean is obliged gravely to confess that the Colonel's coat is very queer.
'Get me another coat, then—see that I don't do anything or wear anything unusual. I have been so long out of Europe, that I don't know the customs here, and am not above learning.'"
[2023]: Finished rereading this while I had COVID (bad fever, aches, tiny bit of delirium) and that is not a position you want to be in if you're going to withstand the sentiment and emotion in one of the greatest and most Victorian Victorian novels. Colonel Newcome, man.
[2016]: The Pendennises are way better in this than they are in Pendennis.
Want to read
April 4, 2015https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7467
Opening: A crow, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy-window, sate perched on a tree looking down at a great big frog in a pool underneath him. The frog's hideous large eyes were goggling out of his head in a manner which appeared quite ridiculous to the old blackamoor, who watched the splay-footed slimy wretch with that peculiar grim humour belonging to crows. Not far from the frog a fat ox was browsing; whilst a few lambs frisked about the meadow, or nibbled the grass and buttercups there.
December 5, 2020
William Makepeace Thackeray was a Victorian author and glutton; he wrote this work near the end of a long series of what some imagine to be a slump in edgy literary output (think Vanity Fair) - with The Newcomes being a slight return to form. It is one of his most Victorian works, constantly referencing contemporary texts, opinions, life, and other ere-specific things. He mentions, for instance, Oliver Twist and The Arabian Nights. The latter might be suspicious, but when we see that many of Victorian child was privy to such a book, the mystery's secret is revealed. Throughout the book, moreover, we are treated with Latin, French, Greek, and Italian untranslated (unless you were lucky enough to have an annotated edition). That can be daunting, and I have warned you, but - be aware - Google Translate also exists.
One overall idea that can be gained in concern to this book, and the pleasure it shall produce in the reader, is to say that it is not very concise with itself. Another reviewer (K.) has already made this point, stating that some 400 pages of the work are often rambling, a sentiment I agree with; if it ever does become more focused, this focus comes near the end. I do not write to dissuade, however, for the book has a particular charm to me that cannot be erased by its fictional world being delineated in more depth. Anthony Trollope's biography of Thackery (William Makepeace Thackeray) is an enlightening read, and can be used as additional material for this work. It really highlights the satire of The Newcomes.
One must admit: this book is melodramatic. One might expect a rambling book to read like a soap opera, and, I suppose, it does. The melodrama does strike to the heart of the reader. I am editing this review now, many years after first publication, because I am horribly embarrassed by my firsts, and can say soundly that many of the book's major plot points have stuck with me. One example of this, providing you with no spoilers, is the final essay which Thackeray wrote to close off the novel. It is sympathetic, and as we read him sadly leaving his characters, and giving us, perhaps, a mere bit of optimism for their futures, one cannot help but feel his feelings somewhat. Maybe I was too young to have crusted over, but I think this is true still.
As a sum up: I found the book, despite heavy flaw, to be good - even great; I would recommend it.
One overall idea that can be gained in concern to this book, and the pleasure it shall produce in the reader, is to say that it is not very concise with itself. Another reviewer (K.) has already made this point, stating that some 400 pages of the work are often rambling, a sentiment I agree with; if it ever does become more focused, this focus comes near the end. I do not write to dissuade, however, for the book has a particular charm to me that cannot be erased by its fictional world being delineated in more depth. Anthony Trollope's biography of Thackery (William Makepeace Thackeray) is an enlightening read, and can be used as additional material for this work. It really highlights the satire of The Newcomes.
One must admit: this book is melodramatic. One might expect a rambling book to read like a soap opera, and, I suppose, it does. The melodrama does strike to the heart of the reader. I am editing this review now, many years after first publication, because I am horribly embarrassed by my firsts, and can say soundly that many of the book's major plot points have stuck with me. One example of this, providing you with no spoilers, is the final essay which Thackeray wrote to close off the novel. It is sympathetic, and as we read him sadly leaving his characters, and giving us, perhaps, a mere bit of optimism for their futures, one cannot help but feel his feelings somewhat. Maybe I was too young to have crusted over, but I think this is true still.
As a sum up: I found the book, despite heavy flaw, to be good - even great; I would recommend it.
February 19, 2024
In true Victorian elegance Thackeray communicates this story with gusto and expertise. The ladies are either righteous or wicked. Many aficionados of Thackeray have maintained that Colonel Newcome is the most perfect gentleman in fiction. Thackeray meant to demonstrate to his audience, the evil effect of certain social conventions of the 19th century, such as arranged marriages, the intemperance in the accumulation of wealth, and the acquisitiveness of the upper classes. Ethel, the heroine, goes through all these involvements, but withal she surfaces at the conclusion a contented woman.
February 5, 2022
Ever since I read "Vanity Fair" in college I thought that Thackery was one of the most brilliant novelists in British history. "The Newcomes" displays the author's exceptional talent in a number of its episodes, but the gaping hole in this book is the hero, who is a dull, mopey, and in many regards a trivial figure. This would be a problem under any circumstances, but it is exacerbated by the fact that every couple of chapters or so the narrator pauses to tell us in hyperbolic language what a wonderful, sterling man Clive Newcome is. All the eligible female characters set out to charm him, and all the good men strive to be his friend and praise him. Regrettably, Thackery has failed to endow his protagonist with the sort of qualities which would make all of this adulation in any way credible, and Clive's troubled romance with the heroine (who starts out as a sort of Scarlett O'Hara figure and ends up being one of those nobly suffering epitomes of virtue who populate Dickens' fiction) seemed to me to be the least interesting aspect of the book. As is often the case, the villains steal the show, and Thackery's depiction of a couple of toxic marriages or the cold maneuverings of an aristocratic matriarch who is determined to beat a corrupt world at its own game are chilling.
April 1, 2021
This is a real 19th-century potboiler with few literary pretensions - and I mean that in a good way. I ended up reading most of it in large chunks because I couldn't bring myself to put it down.
The flavour of the writing reminded me strongly of "Vanity Fair", which turned out not to be a surprise because characters from "Vanity Fair" actually turn up in the background; effectively this is a 'next-generation' setting, with the old Colonel's dress clothes dating back to the era of Waterloo. However, I enjoyed it more than the earlier book because the main characters are more nuanced; to me the most interesting character in "Vanity Fair" was the unfortunate George, who gets posthumously written off, while most of the rest are either wicked or saintly. In this book we have a collection of Dickensian peculiarities, but many of them turn out to have unexpected redeeming qualities, or at least additional character development. The Marquis of Steyne in "Vanity Fair", for instance, is depicted as pure monster, but here his sister Lady Kew is a dreadful old woman with a touch of greatness, and whose forceful character sometimes serves to defend against those who are worse.
The 'good' characters, as is common in Victorian literature, tend to be rather insipid, and this goes for the illustrations as well; the beautiful young men and ladies lack any character (and are often not all that attractive), while the middle-aged grotesques are full of life. I'm not clear if Thackeray did the illustrations himself - an illustrator is credited on the facsimile title page, but then so is a pseudonymous author. This was the one element I did find confusing: a good deal of the book is narrated in the first person, and indeed with authorial asides, and the narrator is identified within the first few chapters as "Pen" or "Pendennis". But later on there are chapters where "Mr Pendennis" appears both in the third person and in the first person, and likewise "Laura", "my wife" and "Mrs Pendennis", to the degree when I became entirely unsure as to whether this character really was supposed to be the narrator or not, or whether I had made a mistake earlier on. Eventually, near the end, I came across a chapter that confirmed the identity of the two as being one and the same person, but I'm still not sure what was going on. It's as if Thackeray the author kept forgetting that he was supposed to be 'Pendennis the author', so that "I" sometimes refers to one and sometimes the other.
Note that the author takes it for granted that his educated 19th-century contemporary reader is fluent in French (sufficiently so to appreciate the very bad French perpetrated by some of the more pretentious characters!) and well acquainted with classical tags - my French is good enough that it didn't even dawn on me that this might be an issue for a modern generation, but I'm afraid I didn't recognise the Latin quotations, and only picked up the reference to 'hoi polloi' of the Ancient Greek!
The flavour of the writing reminded me strongly of "Vanity Fair", which turned out not to be a surprise because characters from "Vanity Fair" actually turn up in the background; effectively this is a 'next-generation' setting, with the old Colonel's dress clothes dating back to the era of Waterloo. However, I enjoyed it more than the earlier book because the main characters are more nuanced; to me the most interesting character in "Vanity Fair" was the unfortunate George, who gets posthumously written off, while most of the rest are either wicked or saintly. In this book we have a collection of Dickensian peculiarities, but many of them turn out to have unexpected redeeming qualities, or at least additional character development. The Marquis of Steyne in "Vanity Fair", for instance, is depicted as pure monster, but here his sister Lady Kew is a dreadful old woman with a touch of greatness, and whose forceful character sometimes serves to defend against those who are worse.
The 'good' characters, as is common in Victorian literature, tend to be rather insipid, and this goes for the illustrations as well; the beautiful young men and ladies lack any character (and are often not all that attractive), while the middle-aged grotesques are full of life. I'm not clear if Thackeray did the illustrations himself - an illustrator is credited on the facsimile title page, but then so is a pseudonymous author. This was the one element I did find confusing: a good deal of the book is narrated in the first person, and indeed with authorial asides, and the narrator is identified within the first few chapters as "Pen" or "Pendennis". But later on there are chapters where "Mr Pendennis" appears both in the third person and in the first person, and likewise "Laura", "my wife" and "Mrs Pendennis", to the degree when I became entirely unsure as to whether this character really was supposed to be the narrator or not, or whether I had made a mistake earlier on. Eventually, near the end, I came across a chapter that confirmed the identity of the two as being one and the same person, but I'm still not sure what was going on. It's as if Thackeray the author kept forgetting that he was supposed to be 'Pendennis the author', so that "I" sometimes refers to one and sometimes the other.
Note that the author takes it for granted that his educated 19th-century contemporary reader is fluent in French (sufficiently so to appreciate the very bad French perpetrated by some of the more pretentious characters!) and well acquainted with classical tags - my French is good enough that it didn't even dawn on me that this might be an issue for a modern generation, but I'm afraid I didn't recognise the Latin quotations, and only picked up the reference to 'hoi polloi' of the Ancient Greek!
June 9, 2019
Although 213 people have given ratings to Thackeray’s Newcomes on Goodreads and 14 people have written reviews, I haven’t met anybody who has even heard of the book let alone read it. I’ve now read all 801 pages and enjoyed the novel, but I understand why it is largely forgotten. It is horribly overwritten, even by Victorian standards.
There is within this obese, sprawling novel a good novel trying to escape. Somebody (not me) should cut the novel to about a third of its present length, and it might well then be widely read, known, and enjoyed. I wouldn’t, however, cut the long sentences, that would be a mistake. There is a pleasure in the inflated sentences and paragraphs, and if they were to be cut the soul of the book might be lost.
I read the book because I read somewhere that it painted a satirical picture of Clapham—at a time when the abolitionists, the excessive do-gooders were wiping away the licentiousness of the Georgian age and forging the stiffness and hypocrisy of the Victorian age. Clapham and an archetypal Claphamite—a rich, endlessly busy, intensely religious, missionary-supporting woman who runs a bank and promotes good causes—are depicted at the beginning but soon disappear, leaving just a flavour. https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
What struck me most about the book was its intense criticism of the “marriage market” in Victorian Britain. The main job of the mother of daughters was to get them married to somebody with wealth and ideally a title, which often meant marrying a much older man. There was no room for love, character, or even attraction. Indeed, the worst thing that could happen to a mother was for her daughter to fall in love with a man who might be smart, handsome, and honourable but poor. Two of the main male characters in the book spend many years, a lifetime in one case, longing for woman who have married or are marrying for money not love. But it was worse for the women, and I’m going to put together another blog illustrating Thackeray’s “feminist” views.
I took many quotes from the book, too many for the space available here--so I'll put them on my website.
https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
There is within this obese, sprawling novel a good novel trying to escape. Somebody (not me) should cut the novel to about a third of its present length, and it might well then be widely read, known, and enjoyed. I wouldn’t, however, cut the long sentences, that would be a mistake. There is a pleasure in the inflated sentences and paragraphs, and if they were to be cut the soul of the book might be lost.
I read the book because I read somewhere that it painted a satirical picture of Clapham—at a time when the abolitionists, the excessive do-gooders were wiping away the licentiousness of the Georgian age and forging the stiffness and hypocrisy of the Victorian age. Clapham and an archetypal Claphamite—a rich, endlessly busy, intensely religious, missionary-supporting woman who runs a bank and promotes good causes—are depicted at the beginning but soon disappear, leaving just a flavour. https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
What struck me most about the book was its intense criticism of the “marriage market” in Victorian Britain. The main job of the mother of daughters was to get them married to somebody with wealth and ideally a title, which often meant marrying a much older man. There was no room for love, character, or even attraction. Indeed, the worst thing that could happen to a mother was for her daughter to fall in love with a man who might be smart, handsome, and honourable but poor. Two of the main male characters in the book spend many years, a lifetime in one case, longing for woman who have married or are marrying for money not love. But it was worse for the women, and I’m going to put together another blog illustrating Thackeray’s “feminist” views.
I took many quotes from the book, too many for the space available here--so I'll put them on my website.
https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
September 2, 2022
For the life of me, I don’t know why I seldom hear of this novel. Even from fans of “Vanity Fair,” and fans of Victorian literature.
It contains nearly everything I could want from such literature. A duel. A Christmas miracle. A formidable young lady. The East India Company. Aspiring painters & writers. Shrewd heiresses & bankers. A chance encounter on a train. Parties, balls, and tavern nights. London, but also Paris and Rome, and countryside beauty. Courtroom drama. Children, some cherubesque, some orphaned. Old money vs. new money. Gossipy house servants. A disgraced clergyman. A disgraced sea captain. Romance under moonlight, young and old. Secret letters. A mudslinging election. A sprawling cast in a generational saga where sometimes the past repeats itself, and sometimes doesn't. And, the most lovable father in any novel I’ve ever read.
Trollope talks to you like a reader, Dickens like “his” reader. I think Thackeray talks to you like a local. Like you're in on the jokes, the spots, and what's trending. “The Newcomes” is set in the period it was published: there are many flares of color specific to the time. Rum punch is passé; i.e., it's cool. The waltz has been edgy for so long now, it's almost losing its edge. "Oliver Twist" came out recently enough that both you & your parents love it. This old bar here's secretly a happening joint; I'll take you in. Sometimes the more esoteric references fly over your head. Characters slip into colloquialisms, accents, or even (infrequently) into other languages. This may make some readers uncomfortable, confused, or lost. But for others, this will make the world of the Newcomes feel so textured & lived in, full of collision. So bustling, sometimes you are only catching up with characters post-action, who weave in & out of each other's lives. It's a lot like a Robert Altman film, actually.
And, Thackeray also talks to you like a writer. Like you're in the room as he develops the page. "Uh oh, didn't I kill off that character?" "We get it, he's really sad—I'm not giving you pages of it." His thinly veiled persona as a character within the novel, while also outside it, enables such a range of vocality. (No, you do NOT need to first read "Pendennis.") He's swung for the fences here, but you always have the distinct impression Thackeray isn't interested in literary games or wasting your time.
On that note: this is Thackeray at the top of his game, seven years after “Vanity Fair.” Pound for pound, Thackeray is more economic with the length here than he was in "Vanity Fair" (which would make sense; Thackeray had not fully planned out the story of Becky & Amelia).
The sharp wit & barbed satire is also here. However, there’s also a fondness, a tender humanity & warmth for these characters & their lives, which is sometimes missing for me in "Barry Lyndon" & "Vanity Fair." I laughed, cried, and cheered for the Newcomes, even during their worst moments.
For similar reasons, here Thackeray is at his most damning about the social conditions for women in this era. He is also explicit about the connections between British imperial ambitions in India, and arranged marriages in the dance halls of London.
Is it a perfect novel? Well, it's long. Personally, I'm not in search of perfection when I read long novels. So, I only think that matters if you're just here for craft.
But, if you’ve read lots of Dickens, the Brontë's, Trollope, Gaskell, or Eliot—or even if not—and you simply want to know what, at its most ambitious, the Victorian Novel was capable of…
If you're here to be transported—if you let it, to be profoundly moved—to read sentences so wise, and so funny, you'll be re-reading them aloud—and, if you can be patient with the first 200 pages or so as you become acquainted with these characters—Then Reader, you are here for a truly unforgettable ride. Make rum punch & settle in.
It contains nearly everything I could want from such literature. A duel. A Christmas miracle. A formidable young lady. The East India Company. Aspiring painters & writers. Shrewd heiresses & bankers. A chance encounter on a train. Parties, balls, and tavern nights. London, but also Paris and Rome, and countryside beauty. Courtroom drama. Children, some cherubesque, some orphaned. Old money vs. new money. Gossipy house servants. A disgraced clergyman. A disgraced sea captain. Romance under moonlight, young and old. Secret letters. A mudslinging election. A sprawling cast in a generational saga where sometimes the past repeats itself, and sometimes doesn't. And, the most lovable father in any novel I’ve ever read.
Trollope talks to you like a reader, Dickens like “his” reader. I think Thackeray talks to you like a local. Like you're in on the jokes, the spots, and what's trending. “The Newcomes” is set in the period it was published: there are many flares of color specific to the time. Rum punch is passé; i.e., it's cool. The waltz has been edgy for so long now, it's almost losing its edge. "Oliver Twist" came out recently enough that both you & your parents love it. This old bar here's secretly a happening joint; I'll take you in. Sometimes the more esoteric references fly over your head. Characters slip into colloquialisms, accents, or even (infrequently) into other languages. This may make some readers uncomfortable, confused, or lost. But for others, this will make the world of the Newcomes feel so textured & lived in, full of collision. So bustling, sometimes you are only catching up with characters post-action, who weave in & out of each other's lives. It's a lot like a Robert Altman film, actually.
And, Thackeray also talks to you like a writer. Like you're in the room as he develops the page. "Uh oh, didn't I kill off that character?" "We get it, he's really sad—I'm not giving you pages of it." His thinly veiled persona as a character within the novel, while also outside it, enables such a range of vocality. (No, you do NOT need to first read "Pendennis.") He's swung for the fences here, but you always have the distinct impression Thackeray isn't interested in literary games or wasting your time.
On that note: this is Thackeray at the top of his game, seven years after “Vanity Fair.” Pound for pound, Thackeray is more economic with the length here than he was in "Vanity Fair" (which would make sense; Thackeray had not fully planned out the story of Becky & Amelia).
The sharp wit & barbed satire is also here. However, there’s also a fondness, a tender humanity & warmth for these characters & their lives, which is sometimes missing for me in "Barry Lyndon" & "Vanity Fair." I laughed, cried, and cheered for the Newcomes, even during their worst moments.
For similar reasons, here Thackeray is at his most damning about the social conditions for women in this era. He is also explicit about the connections between British imperial ambitions in India, and arranged marriages in the dance halls of London.
Is it a perfect novel? Well, it's long. Personally, I'm not in search of perfection when I read long novels. So, I only think that matters if you're just here for craft.
But, if you’ve read lots of Dickens, the Brontë's, Trollope, Gaskell, or Eliot—or even if not—and you simply want to know what, at its most ambitious, the Victorian Novel was capable of…
If you're here to be transported—if you let it, to be profoundly moved—to read sentences so wise, and so funny, you'll be re-reading them aloud—and, if you can be patient with the first 200 pages or so as you become acquainted with these characters—Then Reader, you are here for a truly unforgettable ride. Make rum punch & settle in.
July 1, 2017
I'll let the novel describe itself by an excerpt of it: 'Hang it, what a bore!' (p. 524)
I discovered with this novel that television was made in order to prevent any more modern authors to write meandering, logorrheic novels such as this one. I merely skimmed the entire novel, and even then I thought it was an undeniable waste of time, especially because when I compare this novel to series such as Narcos or Fauda, this novel has barely anything happening within it. If I were to compare this novel to a TV series, it would be a popular Filipino TV program that overstayed its welcome. It's probably Ang Probinsyano, because both are devoid of quality and concision. I'd honestly re-watch Bojack Horseman and get more from it rather than re-read this 'classic' turd.
It was an absolute chore to even skim, yes, skim the novel. It deals about Clive Newcome (I think), and his travels all around the world, but before we even discover that he's going anywhere there are about fifty pages of digressions about different kinds of academia and children, and meaningless French and Latin terms interspersed throughout this doorjamb. This was absolutely horrible. Maybe Philo Farnsworth read this book and realized that he had to make television in order to prevent future readers to suffer reading through this ordeal.
I thought Laura Hunt's Ultra was bad, but that was bad because of its poor use of psychology and deux-et-machina ending. At least it had a more or less coherent story, and didn't waste too much of my time. This one simply takes the cake for being boring and poorly-written. It's a primordial and intelligible Finnegans Wake of sorts: both The Newcomes and the Wake are shit, and rank among the worst novels I've read.
I discovered with this novel that television was made in order to prevent any more modern authors to write meandering, logorrheic novels such as this one. I merely skimmed the entire novel, and even then I thought it was an undeniable waste of time, especially because when I compare this novel to series such as Narcos or Fauda, this novel has barely anything happening within it. If I were to compare this novel to a TV series, it would be a popular Filipino TV program that overstayed its welcome. It's probably Ang Probinsyano, because both are devoid of quality and concision. I'd honestly re-watch Bojack Horseman and get more from it rather than re-read this 'classic' turd.
It was an absolute chore to even skim, yes, skim the novel. It deals about Clive Newcome (I think), and his travels all around the world, but before we even discover that he's going anywhere there are about fifty pages of digressions about different kinds of academia and children, and meaningless French and Latin terms interspersed throughout this doorjamb. This was absolutely horrible. Maybe Philo Farnsworth read this book and realized that he had to make television in order to prevent future readers to suffer reading through this ordeal.
I thought Laura Hunt's Ultra was bad, but that was bad because of its poor use of psychology and deux-et-machina ending. At least it had a more or less coherent story, and didn't waste too much of my time. This one simply takes the cake for being boring and poorly-written. It's a primordial and intelligible Finnegans Wake of sorts: both The Newcomes and the Wake are shit, and rank among the worst novels I've read.
May 14, 2025
William Makepeace Thackeray, I will find your grave and revive you just so I can kill you myself for making me bawl my eyes out at that ending. Anyway, here’s my favorite quote that makes me so much more emotional after finishing this beast of a book:
If love lives through all life; and survives through all sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through all changes; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly; and, if we die, deplores us for ever, and loves still equally; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom—whence it passes with the pure soul, beyond death; surely it shall be immortal? Though we who remain are separated from it, is it not ours in Heaven? If we love still those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love?
May 2, 2018
Given that it is more than 900 pages long, you can imagine that Thackeray tends to meander a bit. That said, I was taken by the contemporary nature of his tale: touching on prejudice, women's rights, the corruptive power of wealth, the false division by class, and even a pyramid scheme. He is very gentle on his characters and in the end, I could understand how the length of the novel could take one through the winter nights of the 19th century with full enjoyment and pleasure.
November 14, 2023
Did not finish at 48%. It's a good book, if overlong. Moreover, there's a ton of text in French. If it were Spanish, I wouldn't have to constantly use translater. See all those notes i made? 99% are French translations. It's keeping me from reading my other library books for almost a week, now.
I love Vanity Fair, though. I was intrigued because Thackeray apparently believed The Newcomes to be his best work.
I love Vanity Fair, though. I was intrigued because Thackeray apparently believed The Newcomes to be his best work.
November 30, 2017
Pure early Victoriana - if that's your cup of tea, do enjoy. Generally engaging characters, the course of a fitful romance, takes place over a decade or so, mostly in London but also accounts of German spas and French provincial towns. Lots of topical references to the times. Might have been a better read if a bit less lengthy?
Want to read
August 5, 2024Qur’an: Chapter 33, Verse 13 --
So, when a faction of them said: “O people of Yathrib, there is no room for you, so return!” a group of them took leave of the Prophet, saying: “Our houses lie exposed.” They were not defenseless; they merely wanted to run away.
So, when a faction of them said: “O people of Yathrib, there is no room for you, so return!” a group of them took leave of the Prophet, saying: “Our houses lie exposed.” They were not defenseless; they merely wanted to run away.
March 2, 2025
The level of detail regarding Victorian life one can glean from The Newcomes is interesting. However, even compared with other books of the time, The Newcomes is dauntingly over-written and meandering.
April 10, 2019
Was very good but also very long!
Want to read
July 16, 2024Don't let the new follow your footstep while you know you were wrong and you ended up in the pit of smoke and darkness. Let them go.
March 16, 2017
I really enjoyed this family saga (even though all these long books of Thackeray's are having a detrimental effect on my 2017 Reading Challenge). I love the way that Thackeray's characters pop up in different books - was he the originator of the companion novel? A very enjoyable read.
February 18, 2024
This book was written and published when people had nothing better to do than read long novels with 100 characters and with long writerly expositions on these characters' noble feelings. The Newcomes are a family that lives in London and South England, and it follows their various members over decades, especially focusing on three of them: Colonel Newcome, an officer in the colonial army in India, who goes back and forth between there and England; Clive Newcome, the Colonel's son, a dashing guy who throws away his valuable family name to become a painter who travels around Europe, and; Ethel Newcome, the most beautiful woman in the world, who has her pick of suitors. She and Clive are half-first-cousins, but that was perfectly fine in 1854 and Clive falls madly in love with her. Does she ever return the love? She has got marquises falling over themselves to wed her, so why would she go for the young artist to whom she is related? Well, one reason is that he is among the most handsome men in the world, even if he doesn't have a lot of pounds. Meanwhile, what's going on with the Colonel's money? That damned Barnes Newcome, Ethel's brother, is a banker and he loves money. And what is going on between Barnes and his wife? How about the painters that Clive went to school with? And Barnes's and Ethel's grandma--where is her money going, and who does she want Ethel to marry?
One of my favorite books is Vanity Fair. The Newcomes was written after Vanity Fair, when Thackeray had a great reputation and could make serious literary cash by stringing along his audience for 24 installments of this soporific novel. I am very pleased to be finished with it.
(And yes, I happened to read a 1954 edition of this book. This book will have 1.0 stars on Goodreads with one review for the foreseeable future.)
One of my favorite books is Vanity Fair. The Newcomes was written after Vanity Fair, when Thackeray had a great reputation and could make serious literary cash by stringing along his audience for 24 installments of this soporific novel. I am very pleased to be finished with it.
(And yes, I happened to read a 1954 edition of this book. This book will have 1.0 stars on Goodreads with one review for the foreseeable future.)
January 21, 2021
The Newcomes is a novel in two volumes originally published in 1855. Mostly set in London it concerns the affairs of the Newcome family: two banking brothers, Brian and Hobson, and their families, and their wayward solider brother, the Colonel, returned to England from India to spend time with his teenage son, Clive. The novel is set in the 1830's and 40's as Clive comes of age and chooses his profession and falls in love. Both Clive and Colonel Newcome are amiable and well-meaning. The rest of the family are more variable. Brian's daughter, Ethel is proud and beautiful and his son, Barnes is resentful and hectoring. Brian's mother-in-law the great Countess doesn't mince her words and his wife is more liberal. Hobson is a country man and his wife is strict about what their children read and do. Both Brian and Hobson, with their families, believe that the Colonel and his son Clive are somewhat beneath them. They certainly don't want Clive, an aspiring painter to marry into one of their families. See more at: https://readableword.wordpress.com/20...
December 18, 2012
This book was long and little confusing, particularly in the beginning - it was kind of all over the place. I liked the middle, but the end was a little melodramatic (not like Dickens, but very sentimental).
January 19, 2017
Second (possibly third?) go-around for me and this one. I love this book. Colonel Newcome is, with all due respect to Miss Sharp, my favorite Thackeray character.
will-someday-finish
October 14, 2011Reading Part I was the accomplishment of my summer! I'd love to read Part II when I have time.
I recommend making a Newcome family tree in pencil and using it as a bookmark.
I recommend making a Newcome family tree in pencil and using it as a bookmark.
March 12, 2014
Mainly the book is a commentary on arranged marriages and how bad they are. A lot of things cleverly said.
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