Note 17 to Chapter 4 of the author's Pegasus in Harness: Victorian Publishing and W. M. Thackeray, which University Press of Virginia published in 1992. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright.
One could take a substantial amount of time correcting errors of fact made by bibliographers, publishing house historians, cross-culture exchange historians, and antiquarian booksellers about the American appearances of Thackeray's works. For example, Eugene Exman, in his history of the Harper firm, conjectured that Harper paid Thackeray £100 for Vanity Fair; he reasoned that that seemed an average amount for the time. It is clear from the records and Thackeray's letters that no payment was ever made for Vanity Fair or for Pendennis. Exmam also claimed Pendennis first appeared in America in Harper's Magazine, a periodical which began publication after the publication of Pendennis (Exman, pp. 262, 337-38). Other sometimes ludicrous bibliographical "facts" are corrected in my "Pendennis in America".
Last modified: 4 April 2001