Backgrounds and Contexts is arranged under three headings.? Composition and Publication History combines modern scholarship with contemporary materials to elucidate the novel's composition and publication history and present different aspects of Thackeray's life and work. Reception reprints ten contemporary reviews, both published and unpublished, that suggest the tone ofThe text of this Norton Critical Edition of Thackeray's acclaimed 1848novel is based on the Garland edition, the text approved by the ModernLanguage Association. The text is fully annotated and is accompanied byall of the author's original illustrations as well as a textualappendix.